As Donald Trump continues to assemble his team of potential cabinet members, NAACP leaders in the Bay Area Saturday voiced disappointment with the president-elect's current slate of selections.
Rev. Amos Brown, who already questions Trump's stance on immigration, was also puzzled by the nod to name disputed Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions attorney general, claiming that the nomination acts as an insult to the ongoing fight for equality and civil rights.
Sessions, who will go before a Senate confirmation hearing in the near future, has been criticized in the past for uttering alleged controversial comments. He was chastised in 1986 for joking in the presence of a Civil Rights Division attorney that the Ku Klux Klan was "OK" until he learned they smoked marijuana. He was also said to have called a black assistant U.S. attorney "boy" and the NAACP "un-American" and "communist-inspired."
NAACP State President Alice Huffman echoed Brown's sentiment and added that a long road remains for minority populations as long as Trump is in the White House.
"I think (Trump's) appointments are reflecting what he promised and I think its going to be some very bad times for people like us in the civil rights and justice movement," she said.
Trump, who met with a number of potential administration candidates Saturday, will continue to finalize his team Sunday when he is expected to meet with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani.
Huffman remains steadfast that the NAACP will continue to fight for fairness regardless of who takes office alongside the future president.
Local
"We’re not through," she said. "We’re not going to hide. We’re not going to duck. We’re going to call him out when he needs calling out and we’re going to stay the course."
