The president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Monday defended now-cancelled plans to honor Donald Sterling, saying the Clippers’ owner has a record of giving money to charities and helping African American students and children.

Facing a barrage of questions from reporters, Leon Jenkins, president of the Los Angeles NAACP, said Sterling had been chosen to receive a lifetime achievement award because of his work with minorities.

“Mr. Sterling’s organization, on a consistent basis has brought in numerous minorities and inner city kids to games,” Jenkins said. “Almost every game, there is a section where there are young people. He has also, in the years we looked at, contributed to a lot of minority charities, including the NAACP.”

“We looked at comparing that with all of the other L.A. (sports) franchises. His organization gave more money to the minority community,” Jenkins added.

Jenkins said he believes the charity the NAACP worked with was the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation.

Over the weekend, the L.A. chapter of the NAACP announced it was cancelling plans to honor Sterling at its May 15 banquet with a lifetime achievement award, a move that came hours after TMZ posted an audio recording of a man believed to be Sterling making racially-charged statements.

Jenkins said a donation made to the NAACP by Sterling would be returned. He described the money as an “insignificant amount.”

Addressing the audio remarks, Jenkins called the remarks on posted by TMZ “devastating.”

“It goes back to a segregation system, and a time that nobody in America is proud of,” Jenkins said. “And I think when you say things like that, you have to pay a price for those kinds of things. You have to demonstrate if at possible, that that is not who you are. So it was devastating, it’s off the scales.”

Jenkins said NAACP had been having conversations with Sterling over a possible endowment to L.A. Southwest College, which Jenkins called an important school for minorities.

“It shows there is a consciousness about the plight of African Americans and Hispanics.” Jenkins said.

In 2009, Sterling agreed to pay a record $2.7 million to settle a case involving allegations that he discriminated against African Americans and Hispanics. Asked about that case, Jenkins said the NAACP called Sterling, and told him that he needs to make amends if the allegations were true.

“That case was settled,” Jenkins told reporters.