King letter and statement criticize Sessions prosecution

In the 1986 letter and statement, the widow of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. 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."

A scan of Sessions' 1986 hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee record shows no mention of King's statement, her letter or any indication she opposed Sessions' nomination as a federal judge.

[...] Thaddeus Strom, former Thurmond chief of staff and chief counsel and staff director of the Senate Judiciary Committee, attributed the absence to a "clerical error."

While he did not remember what happened with the Sessions letter, 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.

Blacks had learned to use the absentee voting rules and were teaching others, which was upsetting those who feared African-American political power, she said.