An NAACP sit-in to protest the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for U.S. attorney general ended after seven hours with handcuffing and arrests.
The sit-in was staged at the senator’s Mobile, Alabama, district office.
The protesters, a handful of men and women, including NAACP president Cornell Brooks, swarmed into Sessions’ office, vowing to remain until Donald Trump rescinded his nomination of the senator for attorney general, or until they were arrested.
It was the latter.
Police arrived several hours into the sit-in and removed five men and one woman in handcuffs, charing them with second-degree criminal trespass, CNN reported.
But their message of protest made the social media circuit, in part because of their live-tweeting during the sit-in.
“We are asking the senator to withdraw his name for consideration as attorney general or for the prsident-elect, Donald Trump, to withdraw the nominatioon,” said Brooks, from the Mobile district office, CNN reported. “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.”
A spokeswoman for Sessions, Sarah Isgur Flores, said the senator has traditionally maintained a solid relationship with minorities in his community and the NAACP protest was aimed at portraying him in a false light.
“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, CNN reported.
