NAACP President Cornell Brooks to speak at Emory on Thursday

NAACP National President Cornell William Brooks holds a press conference about the church killings at the Charleston office on Friday, June 19, 2015. Curtis Compton / ccompton@ajc.com

NAACP National President Cornell William Brooks holds a press conference about the church killings at the Charleston office on Friday, June 19, 2015. Curtis Compton / ccompton@ajc.com

Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), will give a lecture Thursday in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Emory University's school of law.

The lecture, “Why Can’t We Wait: Civil Rights on the Eve of the Trump Inauguration,” will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Tull Auditorium in Gambrell Hall. It’s being held in conjunction with the Black Law Students Association

Brooks has been critical of Trump’s nomination of U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general because of his controversial past.

“We have an attorney general nominee who does not acknowledge the reality of voter suppression while mouthing faith in the myth of voter fraud,” Brooks said in a previous interview.

The NAACP president was recently arrested, along with five other activists , for staging a sit-in at Sessions' Mobile, Ala. office.

In addition to being a civil rights attorney and social justice advocate, Brooks is a fourth-generation ordained minister. He says his vision is of an NAACP that is “multiracial, multiethnic, multigenerational, and millions of members strong.”

Brooks' lecture will be followed by a reception in Hunter Atrium. Free parking will be available after 4 p.m. in the Lowergate South Parking Deck, 1705 Lowergate Drive. Reservations are suggested .

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