*Amid backlash, Trump to attend private event, not public opening at Mississippi Civil Rights Museum*

Amid backlash and boycotts, President Trump is set to join a private gathering Saturday at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.

The congressman - whose skull was fractured in a beating when he marched in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in a protest now called "Bloody Sunday" - tweeted Friday that Trump's visit will be an insult to those being commemorated, but he encouraged other Americans to visit the museum.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the criticism on Friday, saying that the president "hopes others will join him in recognizing that the movement was about removing barriers and unifying Americans of all backgrounds."

"President Trump's statements and policies regarding the protection and enforcement of civil rights have been abysmal, and his attendance is an affront to the veterans of the civil rights movement," NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

It is the state where the three civil rights workers - Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman - trying to register voters in the Mississippi Summer Project, were killed on June 21, 1964, near the town of Philadelphia, Miss.