Mississippi federal Judge Carlton Reeves in a speech in Virginia assailed the Trump administration for lack of diversity in judicial appointments and likened President Trump's attacks on the judiciary to tactics used by the Ku Klux Klan and segregationists in the Jim Crow era.

Reeves, who has ruled on some of the state’s biggest legal cases, spoke Thursday at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he accepted this year's Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law award from his alma mater.

Reeves' law clerk Chelsea Caveny Lewis said Friday that the judge will not make any further comment beyond the speech.

BuzzFeed News reports Reeves, an African American, quoted President Donald Trump's tweets and public comments about judges and the courts (the written version obtained by BuzzFeed includes footnotes making clear Reeves is referring to Trump tweets) and blasted the lack of diversity among Trump's judicial nominees.

"When politicians attack courts as 'dangerous,' 'political,' and guilty of 'egregious overreach,' you can hear the Klan’s lawyers, assailing officers of the court across the South. When leaders chastise people for merely 'using the courts,' you can hear the Citizens Council, hammering up the names of black petitioners in Yazoo City," Reeves said, quoting Trump.

"When the powerful accuse courts of 'opening up our country to potential terrorists,' you can hear the Southern Manifesto’s authors, smearing the judiciary for simply upholding the rights of black folk. When lawmakers say 'we should get rid of judges,' you can hear segregationist Senators, writing bills to strip courts of their power," Reeves said.

Reeves said in his 16-page speech with 130 footnotes that a false seed is being sown across the country, from Mississippi to Virginia,

“I know, because I am there," Reeves said. “The proof is in my mailbox. In countless letters of hatred I’ve been called ‘piece of garbage,’ ‘an arrogant pompous piece of s…, ‘a disgrace,’ an ‘asshole…(who) will burn in hell,’ and the ‘embodiment of Satan himself.'”

Reeves has ruled on some of the state’s high-profile cases including in November when he struck down a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. In addition to the abortion ruling, Reeves in 2016 blocked House Bill 1523 from going into effect during an appeal. The law protects religious objections to same-sex marriage.

Reeves also received national recognition for his speech during the sentencing of three young white men in the 2011 hate crime death of James Craig Anderson, a black man run down on Ellis Avenue in Jackson.

Reeves, a native of Yazoo City, has been a U.S. District Court judge of the Southern District of Mississippi since 2010.

Reeves was nominated to the post by former President Barack Obama.

Reeves said the deliverers of hate who send such messages aim to bully and scare judges who look like him from the judiciary.

There is no excuse for the exclusion of minority experiences from courts, Reeves said. He said presidents from Nixon to Reagan to Bush have proven that Republican administrations have no trouble finding women and people of color with suitable judicial philosophies.

“Justice (Sonia) Sotomayor was originally a George H.W. Bush appointee. And the last Republican administration confirmed 24 black judges,” Reeves said. “This administration has confirmed one.”

More:Judge: HB 1523 violates religious neutrality, equal protection

More:He's ruled on some of Mississippi's biggest cases. Now, Judge Carlton Reeves is a Thomas Jefferson law honoree

Contact Jimmie E. Gates at 601-961-7212 or jgates@gannett.com. Follow @jgatesnews on Twitter.