July 15, 2025
Both Lynch and James touched on the climate of the current administration, warning Black women in the audience on how U.S. legal systems are use them as a target.
Two of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics — New York Attorney General Letitia James and former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch — took center stage at the NAACP Convention Empowerment Brunch in Charlotte to highlight the disparities faced by Black women as the Trump administration continues to push policies against them, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Both Lynch and James touched on the climate created by the current administration, warning Black women in the audience about how U.S. legal systems are using them as a target and how close the country is getting to becoming a nation of fascism. Lynch said the president is making a “bold, naked grab to literally rewrite the Constitution” during a panel moderated by Eboni K. Williams after asking the dignitaries about their thoughts on the executive order threatening to end birthright citizenship protection. “That is how fascism has always started,” the former AG said.
“Going after the least powerful members of society, people who do not have the ability to vote, and making sure they never get it.”
As Lynch labeled the order as “an attempt to unravel what knits this country together by the stroke of a pen,” James highlighted that the order is null and void since it hasn’t been held up in three lower courts — and the fact that “the president doesn’t use a pen, he uses a Sharpie” to sign official documents.
While both historymakers aren’t shy about their thoughts toward the indicted president, Trump has constantly pushed back against them, using racist rhetoric and enabling his MAGA fans.
When James famously took Trump to court for a civil fraud trial between October 2023 and January 2024, he was reportedly triggered by her presence, particularly by James’s “smirking” in court during the trial. “Racist A.G. Letitia James is smirking all day long from her seat in Court,” Trump wrote. “You have a (Trump-Hating!) Attorney General who’s seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages when not a single penny was lost by these banks, and that’s part of this (Unconstitutional!) Law,” he once wrote on his Truth Social app.
“You can see from the reaction of A.G. James, every morning from that seat, that she is enjoying this, enjoying it a bit too much.”
Lynch, who once went toe to toe with Trump after he accused her of being involved with Hillary Clinton’s private email server scandal, encouraged those in the audience to take on a sense of community while surviving this new America. She says the focus should be on being familiar with local leaders and their values well before heading to the voting booth.
The NAACP has been pushing the narrative for decades while still being a pillar of holding leaders in the White House and local municipalities accountable. In addition to not inviting Trump to the convention — holding the title as the first president to not receive an invitaton — the civil rights organization has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education for putting anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in place to “intentionally” discriminate against Black students, according to The Grio. President Derrick Johnson called out the hypocrisy after the government made several claims that systemic racism no longer exists.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., in April 2025, addressed threats from the DOE to withhold federal funding from school districts if they fail to eliminate programs and curricula deemed to be designed to promote racial diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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