When President-elect Donald Trump picked Jeff Sessions for attorney general Friday, critics zeroed in on racist remarks Sessions allegedly made decades ago – but the Alabama senator's 20-year history of honoring black civil rights icon Rosa Parks may not square with efforts to paint him as a bigot.
Sessions, 69, who advised Trump on immigration during the campaign, was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama from 1981 to 1993 before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996. He was re-elected to a fourth term in 2014 and is known for his hardline stance on illegal immigration in particular.
However, the pick was immediately blasted by opponents of Trump, who condemned Sessions as a backwards bigot who would harm the causes of immigrants and African-Americans.
