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good article and worth the time to read.
What Jeff Sessions's Role in Prosecuting the Klan Reveals About His Civil-Rights Record
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/sessions-kkk-case/512600/
Defenders of Trumps choice for attorney general have cited an Alabama lynching case as evidence of his commitment to racial equality. The real story is more complicated.
Beulah Donald, center, wipes tears from her eyes as she enters funeral services for her 19-year-old son Michael in Mobile, Alabama, March 28, 1981. Mark Foley / AP
Adam Serwer Jan 9, 2017 Politics
Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. Attorneys office in the Southern District of Alabama played a crucial role in ensuring that the lynching of 19-year-old Michael Donald by two members of the Ku Klux Klan was investigated and punished.
That gruesome case has become newly relevant with the nomination of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to run the Department of Justice. Sessions was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District when the Donald case was tried.
In 1986, Sessions nomination for a federal judgeship was rejected after one of his former subordinates, Thomas Figures, alleged that Sessions called him boy, made remarks disparaging civil-rights organizations, and made jokes about the KKK, even as his office was investigating the Donald lynching. Civil-rights groups have harshly criticized Sessionss nomination, arguing that he is hostile to federal anti-discrimination and voting-rights law. Six members of the NAACP, including president Cornell Brooks, were arrested in early January after staging a sit-in at Sessionss Mobile office.
After Sessionss nomination was announced, CNNs Jake Tapper asked incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus whether Sessionss record suggested he would be hostile to reforming local police agencies accused of racial bias. Look at this man's life, Priebus replied, citing the Donald case. He prosecuted that person
for the murder. He then presided over the execution of this person.................................
underpants
(182,868 posts)Thanks marking for later read.