For those who don't know, Donald Watkins is a black entrepreneur and lawyer who was heavily involved in civil rights cases for nearly 40 years. The OP is long. I've copied part of it here. It also details their cooperation on the nominations of Alexis Herman and John Ashcroft.

LINK

quote:

I am a political independent who judges public officials on the basis of their conduct in office, not their political views, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or party affiliation. I have worked hard throughout my adult life to be on the side of what’s right even when it is unpopular to do so. My 46-year personal relationship with U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) is a case in point.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Sessions, who was then the U.S. Attorney for Mobile, to a federal judgeship in Mobile. The nomination drew the ire of various state political organizations and national civil rights groups. Thomas Figures, a black Assistant U.S. Attorney in Sessions’ office, provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with testimony of what he said were racially insensitive remarks attributed to Sessions while the two of them worked together. Sessions testified that the remarks referenced by Thomas were taken out of context or were made in jest. There was no testimony that Jeff used racial slurs or that he was demeaning to black co-workers, court personnel, or constituents.

The groups opposing Jeff’s nomination immediately seized upon Figures’ testimony to mobilize enough votes to kill his nomination. Jeff became only the second nominee to the federal judiciary in 48 years whose nomination was killed by the Committee.

Jeff was subsequently elected in 1994 as Alabama’s attorney general. In 1996, Jeff was elected as one of the state’s two U.S. senators. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. Jeff has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his Attorney General. Civil rights groups are already lining up to oppose Jeff's confirmation.

My Law School Experience with Sessions

Jeff was my classmate at the University of Alabama School of Law from 1970 to 1973. I was one of two black law students in our freshman class. The class of 150 students was divided alphabetically and I was the lone black law student in a section of 75 students that included Jeff. It was the longest and loneliest three years of my life. To put matters in perspective, I arrived on campus a full year before any black athlete had joined any UA sports team. I attended the law school on a desegregation scholarship awarded by the NAACP.

The first white student to acknowledge my humanity on campus was Margaret Smith Marston. The first white student to invite me to join an organization was Jeff Sessions. He approached me, introduced himself, shook my hand and asked if I would be interested in joining the Young Republicans on campus. The invitation was sincere and gracious, but I respectfully declined. Jeff thanked me for my consideration of his invitation and asked me to let him know if I changed my mind. If so, he would be happy to escort me to my first meeting.

Jeff and I were cordial with each other for the entire three years we were in law school. I was married at the time and so was Jeff. His wife Mary was a wonderful spouse and a devoted Christian woman who also treated me with kindness.

As Jeff was going through his brutal confirmation hearing for the Mobile federal judgeship, I kept waiting for him to call me as a character witness to rebut the suggestion in Thomas’ testimony that he was a racist. Jeff was a conservative then, as he is now, but he was NOT a racist. I did not want to voluntarily inject myself into Jeff’s nasty confirmation fight. However, had I been called as a witness by either side in this battle, I would have gone to Washington and truthfully answered questions about Jeff’s daily interaction with me during our law school years. This call never came.

A few years later, I saw Jeff at a legal seminar in Birmingham. He was sitting by himself in the hallway outside of the meeting room. I sat down next to him and chatted about his Senate confirmation hearing. I could tell that Jeff was still emotionally wounded from this awful experience. Jeff thought the senators who opposed him had been insensitive to his rights and reputation as a judicial nominee. He was right. Jeff’s confirmation hearing had turned into a politically motivated character assassination.

I asked Jeff why he did not call me as a witness for him. I reminded him of how we had met and had spent three years together at UA when nobody knew our names.

My law school interaction with Jeff had occurred eleven years before he met and worked with Thomas Figures. Jeff was kind, courteous and respectful to me at all times during our law school experience. He was constantly inviting me to Republican Party gatherings on campus. Mind you, this was at a time when Alabama was under solid Democratic Party control.

My talk with Jeff made him tear up. He asked me whether I would have really testified for him about our law school years, and I answered “yes”. I told Jeff that my testimony would have been extremely relevant, especially since my landmark civil rights cases after graduating from law school had favorably reshaped Alabama’s educational, political, economic, and criminal justice landscape. No witness who appeared before the Judiciary Committee against Jeff could have matched my established and nationally recognized civil rights credentials. Plus, my personal connection with Jeff was genuine, deep and born out of ordinary acts of kindness.

At the end of our conversation, I told Jeff that I had failed him and myself. I should have volunteered to stand by his side and tell the story of his true character at his confirmation hearing. The fact that I did not rise on my own to defend Jeff’s good name and character haunted me for years. I promised Jeff that I would never stand idly by and allow another good and decent person to endure a similar character assassination if it was within my power to stop it.