Thread: Arrests end NAACP sit-in at Jeff Sessions' office

Arrests end NAACP sit-in at Jeff Sessions' office

By Jay Croft, CNN
Updated 9:44 PM ET, Tue January 3, 2017

(CNN)An NAACP sit-in to protest the nomination of US Sen. Jeff Sessions as US attorney general ended late Tuesday when six people were arrested at Sessions' Mobile, Alabama, office.

The arrests of five men and one woman included NAACP President Cornell W. Brooks, said Malik Russell, director of communications for the civil rights group. They face charges of criminal trespass in the second-degree, according to Mobile police.

The protesters arrived earlier Tuesday and said they would stay until Sessions is no longer the nominee or they were arrested.

"We are asking the senator to withdraw his name for consideration as attorney general or for the President-elect, Donald Trump, to withdraw the nomination," Brooks said Tuesday afternoon from Sessions' office.

"In the midst of rampant voter suppression, this nominee has failed to acknowledge the reality of voter suppression while pretending to believe in the myth of voter fraud."

Earlier in the day, Alabama NAACP President Benard Simelton said he and 15-20 others were there "conducting business as usual" and would remain until "Sessions meets our demands or the arrest -- whichever he chooses."

Sessions was nominated in November.

Brooks posted a photo on Twitter of himself, Simelton and two other activists in the office.

View image on Twitter

Follow
Cornell Wm. Brooks
✔@CornellWBrooks

The @NAACP & @AlabamaNAACP are occupying the Mobile office of @jeffsessions--untill he withdraws as a AG nominee or we're arrested.@tvonetv
9:44 AM - 3 Jan 2017 · Mobile, AL

• 
  
• 
  9,3169,316 Retweets
• 
  16,42216,422 likes

Sessions, a former Alabama attorney general, has been a controversial figure in the past. His appointment to a federal district court in 1986 by then-President Ronald Reagan sank when a former Justice Department employee testified that Sessions had made racist remarks. Sessions denied the allegations.

Sessions spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores, in a statement to CNN, said the senator "has dedicated his career to upholding the rule of law, ensuring public safety and prosecuting government corruption."

"Many African-American leaders who've known him for decades attest to this and have welcomed his nomination to be the next attorney general. These false portrayals of Sen. Sessions will fail as tired, recycled, hyperbolic charges that have been thoroughly rebuked and discredited," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/03/politi...otest-alabama/

Message to the NAACP, Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions and the rest of the Trump Administration are the best political friends you've had in your lives, and you're soon to find out why that is. It's because this Administration will bring good full-time jobs back to the United States, will keep our great jobs that we do have and ensure they are filled with Americans, will fix our bad trade deals that bleed almost $800 billion a year out of our economy, will revitalize blighted and poverty-stricken portions of our inner cities, will end illegal immigration once and for all and will significantly reduce if not pause altogether unneeded excess legal immigration.

The NAACP needs to unite behind Trump and this Administration and do everything within its power to help make all these good things happen, not try to hinder them with false outright silly race-baiting.

Take action to help us / ALIPAC support Jeff Sessions right away please...

http://www.alipac.us/f8/help-us-figh...mps-ag-342078/