NAACP Legal Defense Fund president alarmed by Trump administration's call to "dominate the streets"
The lawyer heading the country's foremost civil rights and law organization tells 60 Minutes she is alarmed by the Trump administration's call to "dominate the streets" in the face of unrest and protests caused by the killing of George Floyd. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, speaks to Bill Whitaker about Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police and what its aftermath means for America. The interview will be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, June 7, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
She says answering people who are protesting police brutality with overwhelming force is counterintuitive. "Responding to protests that emanate from anger about the excessive use of force with an excessive use of force strikes me as not a good strategy for law and order," Ifill says.
Ifill reacted to Attorney General Bill Barr's echoing of the president's call to dominate the nation's streets. "The attorney general of the United States saying that on a phone call with governors. Part of the thing that has been so alarming is not Mr. Trump himself but the amount of people who have been willing to go along with things that we would have regarded as beyond the pale," she tells Whitaker. "And who have been willing to be part of this unraveling of our democracy."
The administration's response to the peaceful protests around the White House last Monday night, she says, was not fitting for a democratic government. "Well, we call them strongmen because that's their goal is to appear strong," Ifill says of the incident a few days ago when protesters near the White House were dispersed with crowd controlling agents before President Trump walked to St. John's Church to have a photo taken of him holding a Bible. "But actually, there is so much more strength in the willingness to lead a true democracy. You are strong because you can hear dissent."
Ifill, a constitutional law scholar and civil rights leader hopes this moment in time will lead to structural changes in our evolving democracy. "We should be creating new ideals. You know, the Constitution doesn't have to just be that static document. We've amended it many times," says Ifill. "We amended it to give women the right to vote. We amended it to extend the vote to 18-year-olds. We always have the possibility of improving the republic. But the people have to have the will to do it."