The NAACP is staging a sit-in at the Mobile, Alabama, office of US Sen. Jeff Sessions to protest Sessions’ nomination as US attorney general.
NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, Alabama state NAACP President Benard Simelton and others say they will stay at the office until they speak with Sessions or are removed.
Sessions was nominated in November to be US attorney general by President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Brooks posted a photo on Twitter of himself and three other activists in Sessions’ office Tuesday, saying they plan to remain “until he withdraws as a AG nominee or we’re arrested.”
The civil rights group also wants assurances from Sessions that he would expand the Voting Rights Act if he becomes attorney general.
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 angrily denied the allegations at the time.