NAACP requests Trump not attend museum opening

The NAACP is urging President Donald Trump to skip the opening celebration for a civil rights museum in Mississippi that he had planned to attend, with the organization’s leader sharply criticizing the president’s record on civil rights.

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, a project of the state’s Department of Archives and History, is set to open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday in Jackson, the state capital. The event will feature speeches from civil rights leaders and elected officials, including Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, who extended the invitation to the president.

But NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Trump’s attendance would be an “affront” to the movement commemorated by the museum.

“President Trump’s statements and policies regarding the protection and enforcement of civil rights have been abysmal, and his attendance is an affront to the veterans of the civil rights movement,” Johnson said. “He has created a commission to reinforce voter suppression, refused to denounce white supremacists, and overall, has created a racially hostile climate in this nation.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Johnson’s stance “honestly very sad,” during her afternoon briefing on Tuesday.

“I think this is something that should bring the country together,” she said. “And I would hope that those individuals would join in that celebration instead of protesting it.”

The NAACP, founded in 1909, is one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious civil rights organizations. The organization’s rebuke is likely to touch off a new round of debate about the president’s views on racial minorities and civil rights.

Some of the president’s actions, including his refusal at times to disavow white supremacists and his vocal support for Confederate monuments, have been the subject of fierce debate.