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DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2017
VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 7
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Civil Rights icon Coretta Scott King wrote the letter in 1986
urging a Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee
to reject then U.S. Attorney Sessions’ nomination for a district
court judgeship. (Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)
King letter and statement
criticize Sessions prosecution
By Jesse J. Holland
WASHINGTON (AP) - Coretta Scott King would consider it an
affront that Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked on the Senate floor
for quoting her letter opposing a federal judgeship for new Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, the civil rights leader’s daughter says.
The Senate’s GOP majority voted to silence Warren with a highly
unusual rebuke Feb. 7 as she was reading King’s letter. Several male
senators then stood up and read from the same letter without drawing
objections.
Bernice King, CEO of The King Center in Atlanta, said her moth
er, the widow of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., would have
considered that an “affront to women.”
“These actions on our Senate floor reflect the continual blight of a
patriarchal order in our nation and world,” she said.
In the 1986 letter and statement, King said Sessions’ actions as
a federal prosecutor in Alabama were “reprehensible” and said he
used his office “in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly
black voters.”
King’s letter and statement never appeared in Sessions’ hearing
record in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions was
eventually rejected as a federal judge, but went on to become Ala
bama’s U.S. senator. Sessions was confirmed by the Senate as attor
ney general on Feb. 8.
The NAACP, whose leaders have been arrested protesting Ses
sions’ nomination, said in a statement it would ask Congress to mon
itor Sessions carefully “to ensure that the senator does what he is
supposed to do to protect the vote and to end voter suppression and
police brutality.”
“Should Sessions prove to be anything but a fair and impartial
defender of liberty and justice, our community will hold him fully ac
countable,” National Urban League President Marc H. Morial added.
In her letter, King said a previous appointment kept her from be
ing in Washington personally to speak against Sessions.
“I request that my statement, as well as this letter be made a part of
the hearing record,” she asked then Senate Judiciary Chairman Strom
Thurmond, R-S.C., who was an avowed segregationist in his earlier
life. She copied in Joe Biden, then Democratic senator from Dela
ware, who would go on to be vice president under President Barack
Obama.
A scan of Sessions’ hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Com
mittee record shows no mention of King’s statement, her letter or any
indication she opposed Sessions’ nomination as a federal judge.
Jim Manley, a Democratic consultant and former top Senate aide,
called it “unusual” that the letter would not be included. “I think it
probably highlights what a flashpoint racial politics played in Sen.
Sessions’ nomination years ago,” Manley said.
But Thaddeus Strom, former Thurmond chief of staff and chief
counsel and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, attrib
uted the absence to a “clerical error.”
“Certainly it wasn’t by design,” Strom said. “It’s a perfunctory
matter to include letters and statements in support and opposition to
nominees and these are often submitted by senators on the committee
during the hearing. Counsel for Republicans and Democrats would
have reviewed the record before it was final and in this instance it
appears the ball was dropped.”.
There was likely nothing nefarious about the letter not being in
cluded in the record, added Armstrong Williams, a former Thurmond
staffer. There was no hostility between Thurmond and King during
that period, said Williams, who has a photo of himself, King and
Thurmond together.
While he did not remember what happened with the Sessions let
ter, Williams said he remembered Mrs. King successfully lobbying
Thurmond to keep federal funding for the Martin Luther King Jr.
national holiday, and them sitting together at then-President George
H.W. Bush’s inauguration.
“Mrs. King came to the conclusion that people could change, and
it started with Senator Thurmond,” Williams said.
King, in her statement, pointed to Sessions’ prosecution of three
(Continued On Page 12)
C
Tf
Opposition to Trump, HB2 beef
up Moral March on Raleigh’
By Gary D. Robertson
RALEIGH (AP) - A massive crowd attended Saturday’s (Feb. 11) il rights rally in North Carolina’s capital, beefed up by protesters ener
gized in opposition to President Donald Trump and to a state law limiting LGBT rights and which public bathrooms transgender people can
use.
Organizers of the “Moral March on Raleigh,” led by the state chapter of the NAACP, has largely focused on state government during its
11 years of existence, more recently against the conservative-leaning agenda Republicans have implemented.
Saturday, Feb. 11, had a more national emphasis, particularly with the arrival of Trump in the White House. Speakers at the end of the
downtown march near the old Capitol Building lamented Trump’s support to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care overhaul
and Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration.
Trump last month signed an executive order that barred anyone from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days. Although a federal
court has blocked its enforcement, marchers kept the issue front and center by chanting “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here.”
“I think it’s a shame,” said Laurence Brunet, 30, a Canadian researcher living in Carrboro for just over a year. “Any country is so stronger
if we just accept everyone.”
(Continued On Pafe 12)
Protestors at the Moral Monday March in Raleigh led by the N.C. NAACP. Ronald Parker Artijep Photography
Scott, Senate’s
sole black
Republican,
defends
Sessions
By Andrew Taylor
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s lone African-
American Republican, on Feb. 8 offered a personal and passionate
defense of Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s embattled
choice for attorney general.
Scott, a South Carolina conservative, noted the racist messages he
had received since announcing his support for Sessions. He spoke of
his personal experiences in introducing the Alabama Republican to
African-American pastors at a racial forum in Charleston.
And he read the statements of black Alabama Democrats vouch
ing for Sessions, who as attorney general will be the nation’s top law
enforcement official.
Scott said the South is still working through racial differences and
said “Jeff Sessions has earned my support and I will hold him ac
countable if and when we disagree.”
Scott read messages in which he was called an “Uncle Tom” - and
worse - and said that “as I read through some of the comments of my
friends on the left, you will wonder if I ever had an experience as a
black person in America.”
“I just wish that my friends who call themselves liberals would
want tolerance for all Americans.”
Scott speaks on the floor less often than many senators, but has
previously given a series of speeches on race, including one last
summer recalling his numerous experiences getting pulled over by
police, often simply for driving a late-model car in “the wrong neigh
borhood.”
He said liberals are quick to jump to conclusions about the actions
and motives of others when it comes to matters of race.
“Too often, too many - particularly on the right - are found guilty
until proven innocent on issues of race, issues of fairness,” said
Scott, one of three African Americans in the Senate. “I just wish that
my friends who call themselves liberals would want tolerance for all
Americans.”
The other African Americans in the Senate are Democrats Cory
Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.
The Senate voted to confirm Sessions early Wednesday evening
(Feb. 8).
Slain Missouri KKK leader’s wife
held on suspicion of murder
LEADWOOD, Mo. (AP) - The wife of a Ku Klux Klan
leader who was found fatally shot next to a river in east
ern Missouri has been jailed on suspicion of first-degree
murder.
An official at the St. Francois County Jail told the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch Monday, Feb. 13, that 44-year-old
Malissa Ancona is in custody. Charges have not been
filed.
A family that was fishing found the body of her hus
band, 51-year-old Frank Ancona, on Feb. 11 along the
Big River near the tiny town of Belgrade, about 80 miles
southwest of St. Louis. An autopsy conducted Feb. 12 re
vealed he died of a gunshot to the head.
Calls Feb. 13 requesting comment from nearby Lead
wood police and the St. Francois County Sheriff’s De
partment, as well as the county prosecutor, were not im
mediately returned.
The Park Hills Daily Journal said investigators placed
yellow police tape around Ancona’s home in Leadwood
Feb. 11, believing he was killed there. His safe had been
broken into and the contents removed. Several of Anco
na’s guns were missing, police told the Daily Journal.
Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said a U.S.
Forest Service employee found Ancona’s car Feb. 9 on a
service road near Potosi, about 30 miles from where his
body was eventually found. Ancona was reported miss
ing Feb. 10 after his employer told Leadwood police that
Ancona had not shown up for work for two days.
Investigators found evidence of a burn pile near An
cona’s abandoned vehicle, Jacobsen said.
Prior to the discovery of Ancona’s body, Malissa An
cona told police her husband had left the state on a deliv
ery job. She said he planned to file for divorce when he
returned.
Ancona called himself an imperial wizard with the
Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. A
website for the group includes an image of Ancona in a
white hood and robe standing in front of a burning cross.
The website describes the group as a “White Patriotic
Christian organization that bases its roots back to the Ku