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Rev. William Barber has stood on the frontline of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina to protest against discriminatory practices conducted by Republicans in his home state. He is now leading a Moral March on Monday in Washington, D.C. to protest Donald Trump‘s nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions for Attorney General.

Rev. Barber spoke with Roland Martin during Monday’s edition of NewsOne Now about the protest action and why he and many others believe Sessions is unfit to become the nation’s next top law enforcement official.

“We’re in a moral crisis,” Barber said. “Sessions has an immoral record that consistently supported what we call ideological extremism, racist and classist policies and writing the discrimination in the law.”

Rev. Barber continued, “They try to say that he is nice and respectable, but his policies are mean and racist.”

In describing some of Sen. Sessions discriminatory handiwork, which includes opposing Loretta Lynch’s nomination for Attorney General, proclaiming the Voting Rights Act an “intrusion,” and celebrating the Shelby County v. Holder decision that struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, Rev. Barber said, “We do not need the fox guarding the hen-house.”

Barber later said, “Now he [Jeff Sessions] wants a rush confirmation when he has been in essence ‘Senator No,’ like Jesse Helms used to be.”

NewsOne Now panelist Kristen Clarke, president and CEO of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, reminded viewers that in 1986, Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship and a bipartisan panel of senators voted him down as a result of his record of “clear racial hostility and insensitivity.”

Clarke added Sessions is someone who “called an African-American colleague a ‘boy,’ this is somebody who made joking comments suggesting that the KKK is OK, this is somebody who has made a career out of selectively prosecuting African-American civil rights activists in Alabama––a group known as the Marion Three––for merely trying to register people to vote.”

“That long record of hostility and racial insensitivity has not changed,” Clarke said.

Watch Roland Martin, Rev. William Barber, Kristen Clarke, and the NewsOne Now panel dissect Sen. Jeff Sessions’ extremely troubling civil rights record in the video clip above.

Watch NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.

SEE ALSO:

Jeff Sessions Claims To Have ‘Filed 20 Or 30’ Desegregation Cases As Alabama U.S. Attorney

Why Interfaith Clergy Are Mobilizing To Urge Congress To Reject Jeff Sessions’ Nomination  was originally published on newsone.com