NAACP vows to resist Sessions appointment as attorney general with civil disobedience

The NAACP intends to continue its fight to stop Sen. Jeff Sessions from becoming the next Attorney General despite the Senate Judiciary Committee approval of Session on the first day of Black History Month.

On January 29th, NAACP President Cornell William Brooks and five other members of the civil rights group rallied outside the Mobile, Alabama building where Senator Jeff Sessions has his office, listing the reasons they oppose his confirmation as Attorney General. Brooks vowed the NAACP will continue to resist Sessions even if he is confirmed.

The rally took place a few hours after trespassing charges for a sit-in the group held at Jeff Sessions on January 3 were dropped. After the rally, Brooks led a group opposed to Sessions’ possible confirmation as Attorney General, into the building to sit-in in the hallway in front of Session’s office which was closed.

I asked Brooks if he thought President Trump was complaining about fake votes as a way to embolden voter suppression. Brooks told me he believed that is exactly the case, and one of the reasons Sessions must not be confirmed. “Senator Sessions has callously ignored the reality of voter suppression, but zealously prosecuted innocent civil rights leaders on trumped-up charges of voter fraud,” Brooks said.

Brooks pointed out that while there is no proof of voter fraud in the 2016 election, there is proof that thousand of names were purged from the voter rolls leaving “a cloud hanging over the ballot box.”

The police came at the building manager’s request and announced that anyone who refused to leave the building, including the media, would be arrested. Eleven protestors remained, including the six previously arrested.