Klan-defending Georgia lawyer calls for US to be divided into 'racial zones' and says integration was 'a mistake'

An Atlanta real estate lawyer who defended the Ku Klux Klan in the '70s and '80s is once again in the news for his claim that "desegregation was a mistake."

In an interview with Atlanta's WSB-TV 2, attorney Sam Dickson said that although he is "not hostile to minority groups," he believes "it’s unnatural for people to, to live among people who are radically different from them."

Espousing a belief that the U.S. should be divided into "racial zones" is nothing new for Dickson.

A 2006 profile by the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine reveals Dickson's racist past, which ranged from providing counsel to Georgia's Klan to establishing connections among white supremacists in Britain. In the late '70s, he ran for Georgia's lieutenant governor on a "segregationist platform."

Now, Dickson tells WSB-TV that although he rejects the alt-right label, he "frequently speaks to alt-right groups" and identifies as a white nationalist.

On his website, Dickson describes himself as a "racial communitarian activist." He wrote a blog post on earlier this year about his visit to a cathedral in Moscow, which he claimed to have visited because Russian President Vladimir Putin attended Easter services there. He also wrote for the white nationalist organization American Renaissance that counts Richard Spencer as a member.