NAACP head calls Sessions 'unfit' for attorney general

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of one of the largest African-American civil rights organization told Congress today that Sen. Jeff Sessions is "unfit to serve" as attorney general, as a 1986 letter from the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. surfaced strongly expressing opposition to the Alabama senator.

Cornell Brooks, the head of the NAACP, said the organization "firmly believes" that Sessions is unfit to serve as attorney general in the incoming Trump administration. Brooks joined supporters and opponents of Sessions on the second day of Senate confirmation hearings.

The Alabama Republican was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 for a federal judgeship amid accusations that he had called a black attorney "boy" – which he denied – and the NAACP and ACLU "un-American."

"We take no pleasure in stating that, in the view of the NAACP, Senator Sessions' record conclusively demonstrates that he lacks the judgment and temperament to serve effectively as attorney general of the United States," Brooks said in his testimony, saying the senator "evinces a clear disregard, disrespect and even disdain for the civil and human rights of racial and ethnic minorities, women, the disabled and others who suffer from discrimination in this country."

Sessions on Tuesday called those accusations "damnably false" and said he is "totally committed to maintaining the freedom and equality that this country has to provide to every citizen."

On Tuesday, the NAACP released a letter from Coretta Scott King, wife of the civil rights leader, in which she said that Sessions' actions as a federal prosecutor were "reprehensible" and that he used his office "in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters."

"Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge," Mrs. King wrote. Mrs. King died in 2006.