NAACP

ATHENS, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama NAACP says it's honoring four people as the initial members of the Alabama NAACP Hall of Honor. 

The list includes attorney Fred Gray Sr. of Tuskegee, who once fought for the right of the organization to operate in the state. Other honorees include Della M. Bryant of Montgomery; Frank Travis of Limestone County; and Mary Walker of Mobile.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is set to begin charging its utilities a fixed fee that will likely be passed on to customers, no matter how much energy they use.

The decision by the TVA's board yesterday is deeply frustrating advocates for ratepayers and green energy. They say it will penalize people who turn off their lights or use renewable energy to save on bills.

The TVA says it is offsetting the fixed fee it needs to maintain the power grid with an equal reduction of about a half-cent per kilowatt-hour in the variable wholesale rate for electricity.

A man responsible for a wave of terror across the Southeast in the late 1980s was put to death last night.

83-year-old Walter Leroy Moody was pronounced dead at 8:42 p.m. last night following a lethal injection at W.C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama.

Moody was convicted of killing U.S. Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance and Robert Robinson, a black civil rights attorney from Savannah, Georgia, with bombs sent through the mail. Two other bombs, including one mailed to a Florida NAACP office, were intercepted and did not explode.

A package bomber who created a wave of terror across the South is scheduled to be executed in Alabama, nearly 30 years after killing a federal judge with a bomb mailed to his home.

Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday. At his 1996 trial, prosecutors described Moody as a meticulous coward who committed murder by mail because of his obsession with getting revenge on the legal system, and then committed more bombings to make it look like the Ku Klux Klan was behind the judge's murder.

More civil rights groups are challenging a federal judge's ruling that a law requiring Alabama voters to show a valid photo ID is not discriminatory.

Alabama has required voters to present government-issued photo identification at the polls since 2014. The Alabama NAACP and Greater Birmingham Ministries sued over the law in 2015, arguing it disproportionately affects minorities.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s state law requiring people to show government issued photo ID at the polls.

The lawsuit was one of the latest battles between voting rights advocates who say these measures are aimed at suppressing voter turnout and conservative states that argue they’re needed to prevent voter fraud.

A leading figure among religious liberals says the candidacy of Roy Moore for U.S. Senate is a struggle for the "soul of the nation."

The remarks today by the Rev. William J. Barber come one day after a letter signed by dozens of progressive pastors in Alabama said Moore — dogged by recent allegations of inappropriate conduct toward teenage girls decades ago — is unfit to serve.

Confederate monuments have been the topic of many discussions lately, mostly about them being torn down or covered up.

But a new Confederate monument is set to be unveiled this weekend in Crenshaw County. The monument is dedicated to “unknown Alabama Confederate soldiers.” David Coggins, the owner of Confederate Memorial Park where the monument will be located, says it is intended to honor Confederate soldiers who died in battle and never received a proper burial.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions will face a Senate confirmation vote to become the country’s next Attorney General later today, and protestors in Alabama are once again making their voices heard in opposition.

More than 100 people reportedly took part in a second sit-in at Senator Sessions’ office in Mobile. The office was closed, but demonstrators reportedly packed the building outside his office and in a second-floor lobby.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Senator Jeff Sessions’ confirmation as the next U.S. Attorney General earlier this week. But that vote has been delayed until next Tuesday.

Senator Sessions has faced intense criticism from the left for his conservative voting record, and civil rights advocates including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have pointed to allegations of racist behavior.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions will face his peers on the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee today as he begins confirmation to become the next U.S. Attorney General.

Last night, members of the NAACP continued protests and prayer vigils outside Sessions’ Alabama offices. The organization has criticized Sessions' stance on civil rights, immigration, criminal justice reform and voting rights enforcement.

The confirmation hearing for Senator Jeff Sessions is set to begin this week.

The Alabama senator has been nominated for the U.S. Attorney General post. Sessions’ nomination has drawn criticism from groups like the NAACP because of comments he made regarding the Ku Klux Klan and his prosecution of three activists accused of voter fraud in Perry County, Alabama. The son of the defendants in that case has come forward to endorse Sessions for Attorney General.

Several demonstrators including the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were arrested yesterday protesting the nomination of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General.

The NAACP members were staging a sit-in at Senator Sessions’ office in Mobile. Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO of the NAACP, said they would remain at Sessions' office until they were able to speak with the Senator or they were removed.

A federal judge is considering the state of Alabama’s request to dismiss a lawsuit over a new law that blocked a minimum wage increase in Birmingham.

District Judge R. David Proctor held a hearing yesterday afternoon on the motions to dismiss. Last year, the Birmingham City Council voted to raise the city's hourly minimum wage to $10.10. Just before that law took effect, the Alabama Legislature quickly passed legislation requiring a uniform minimum wage throughout the state.

A civil rights group challenges Alabama's practice of electing appellate judges by statewide vote.  Officials with the NAACP’s Alabama Chapter say the practice has resulted in all-white courts in a state where one of every four people is African-American.

The chapter and four black voters sued the state in Montgomery federal court today.  They argue electing judges through at-large elections in Alabama violates the Voting Rights Act.

Protest marchers in Alabama on Sunday embarked on the second day of their planned 860-mile trek to Washington, D.C., as part of "America's Journey for Justice."

Sponsored by the NAACP, "America's Journey for Justice" is scheduled to cross through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia before reaching Washington, D.C., in mid-September.

The marchers are expected to cross into Georgia around Friday.

Organizers of regular protests at the North Carolina Legislature are being joined by NAACP leaders in a half-dozen other states to launch a week of demonstrations.

The North Carolina NAACP says that Friday will be the first of seven days of demonstrations. In North Carolina, a coalition led by the NAACP has protested at the Capitol nearly every week during the past two legislative sessions.