NAACP President Arrested During Sit-In at Office of Racist Suspect Jeff Sessions
/Protesters from the N.A.A.C.P., including its national president, were arrested on Tuesday after an hourslong sit-in at the Mobile, Ala., office of Senator Jeff Sessions, where they demanded that he withdraw his name from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general.
Almost two dozen civil rights activists occupied the office around 11 a.m. to denounce what they called the senator’s “hostile” attitude toward civil rights and the Voting Rights Act, which was weakened by a Supreme Court decision in 2013.
The sit-in ended shortly after 6:30 p.m. when the protesters refused an order from the building’s management to leave the premises. It was not immediately clear how many people had been arrested, but a live-stream broadcast on Facebook by Lee Hedgepeth, a local journalist, showed at least six people agreeing to be arrested and kneeling before the police in prayer.
“We are about to be arrested,” said Cornell William Brooks, the national president of the N.A.A.C.P., cutting short a phone call with a reporter on Tuesday night. “We are doing this as an act of civil disobedience standing in the tradition of Rosa Parks and members of the N.A.A.C.P. community.”
On the Facebook livestream, Mr. Brooks could be seen shaking hands with a line of police officers standing in Mr. Sessions’s office.
“We are all well aware of the laws of trespass,” Mr. Brooks told the police. “We are engaging in a voluntary act of civil disobedience.”
A phone call to Bernard Simelton, the president of the Alabama N.A.A.C.P. State Conference, was answered by a man who did not identify himself but said that Mr. Simelton was being arrested as well.
“They’re doing it at this moment,” the man said, before quickly hanging up. “You’re going to have to call back.”
Earlier in the day, Mr. Brooks pointed to a rise in voter suppression tactics and the continuing debate over police killings of unarmed civilians, primarily African-Americans, and denounced Mr. Sessions as “the worst possible nominee for attorney general at the worst possible moment.”
“If we understand depth of commitment to be a requirement for the job of attorney general, then he is not qualified for the job, because he has demonstrated no depth of commitment when it comes to civil rights,” Mr. Brooks said. [MORE]
