Civil rights organizations around the country are preparing for the Trump administration’s crackdown on progressive-aligned groups, Bryan Fair, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Mississippi Today on Tuesday.

Fair spoke to the news outlet in an exclusive interview on the heels of President Donald Trump signing a memorandum directing federal law enforcement agencies to investigate what he claimed were wealthy donors and organizations funding left-wing political violence.

The memo could be used as a pretext to target civil rights organizations perceived to be enemies of the Trump administration and Republican causes in states such as Mississippi, Fair said.

“The charge from the administration, the most recent memorandum, seems to go after one type of organization — organizations that are critical of this administration, or that promote equality of opportunity for all,” Fair said. “We see this as a partisan attack on progressive nonprofits that seek to lift up due-process rights, First Amendment rights and the equal protection rights of all persons.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center — one of the nation’s most well-known civil rights organizations that rose to prominence by filing legal cases against white supremacist groups in the post-Jim Crow South — will remain undeterred from its mission, Fair said. But Trump’s memo last week and his administration’s vows to attack the financial and organizational networks that support progressive causes have sent many groups bracing for impact.

The center is part of a “civil rights ecosystem” that includes organizations such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the ACLU, the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund and Democracy Forward. All of these groups believe that the administration plans to target civil rights groups, Fair said. The SPLC has long attracted the ire of Republican politicians and groups who see the organization as biased against conservatives.

The organization’s work classifying “hate groups” is a particular point of contention, with critics saying the organization lumps mainstream conservative groups together with white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

Anger from Trump and his supporters toward progressive groups intensified after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Trump administration officials and allied media figures have claimed, largely without evidence, that progressive groups have encouraged physical violence against conservatives. Some conservative critics have trained their attention and large social followings on the center by name.

Fair said his organization condemned Kirk’s murder and has never condoned political violence of any sort.

“For 55 years, SPLC has been on the front lines of fighting hate and extremism in this country,” Fair said. “We were founded to fight for the civil rights of all persons, and that’s what we do every day. We believe that everything that we do is protected under the law.”

Fair said threats from the Trump administration against groups such as the center have arrived at the same time these organizations are working to blunt the impact of deep federal spending cuts approved by congressional Republicans.

Fair was in Jackson on Tuesday to kick off a “Truth, Poverty and Democracy Tour” around Mississippi. The multicity, week-long tour will connect Mississippians to advocates and resources that “address systemic barriers to health care, housing, education and voting rights,” the organization said.

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and Fair said the center plans to wage a “war on poverty,” harkening back to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 State of the Union Address.

Three years after that speech, Democratic Sen. Robert F. Kennedy toured the Mississippi Delta to learn more about the region’s life-shaping poverty, a seemingly intractable problem that still persists.

The center’s plans to emphasize poverty-related issues — such as the Republican-pushed “big, beautiful bill” cuts to Medicaid and food assistance — represent a new strategy for the organization.

“We’ve adopted poverty as a new pillar of our work,” Fair said. “Historically, we have not done great work in that space, but we’re trying very intentionally to shift our focus so that we’re on the ground.”

Democratic state lawmakers said at a press conference later on Tuesday that they would continue partnering with groups such as the center on shared efforts to strengthen social safety net programs.

“I’m done trying to change the minds of some of the people in this Capitol building or change the minds of the people in Washington who are in control,” said House Minority Leader Robert Johnson. “Our job is to get them out. So this partnership will continue whether Trump funds it or not.”

While the shift to a full-throated focus on poverty-related issues might be a departure, Fair said the center would not change its tactics in response to federal pressure.

“We have no intention of being silenced by this administration or any administration,” Fair said.