The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery identified two hate groups which are located in Wetumpka. A third is located in Coosa County.

We all know there are hate groups among us. There are members of the Klu Klux Klan, Skinheads, anti-LGBT groups, Neo-Natzi, black separatists and Neo-Confederate groups.

But did you know three hate groups are located in your backyard?

In a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, there are two hate groups located in Wetumpka and one in nearby Weogufga in rural Coosa County.

Neo-Confederate groups League of the South are listed as being in Wetumpka and Weogufga, while fellow Neo-Confederate Southern National Congress is also located in Wetumpka.

The key motivation of League of the South is to support the South in seceding from the rest of the United States.

It is a “Southern Nationalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic,” according to its website.

To reach the goal cited by League of the South it intends to:

•Expose the corruption, stupidity and self destructive mentality of the current government in Washington.

•Prove willingness to be servant-leaders to the Southern people.

•Make The League of the South a strong, viable organization that will lead people to Southern independence.

Recently the League of the South drew ire from those traveling in Montgomery and Tallahassee, Florida, where billboards just say “SECEDE.”

Advertisers with the billboard companies which posted the message complained and the billboards were quickly taken down.

The League of the South origin dates back to 1994 when it was founded by Michael Hill, who was a specialist in Celtic History at the historically black Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

In the recent publication by the SPLC, it recognized 22 hate groups in Alabama.

The SPLC listed 22 hate groups in Mississippi, 50 in Georgia, 37 in Tennessee and 58 in Florida.

The most hate groups in one state is ironically located in what is considered one of the more liberal states – California – in the U.S. with 77.

The Southern National Congress, which first met in 2006, is “an organization of volunteer Southern citizens whose objective is to effect the freedom and independence of the several Southern States and their people so that they may restore their historic traditions of self-government and ordered Christian Liberty,” according to its website.

The Southern National Congress says those who are a part of their idealogy are having their identity, culture, liberty and well-being threatened as never since 1865.

On Jan. 31, 1865, Congress voted to abolish slavery.