Photo of Obama is taken down at Air Force Base

President Barack Obama's picture was removed this week from a Presidents Day sign at the Peterson Air Force Base commissary after customers complained that the image did not fit the holiday commemorating the birthdays of past presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

The head of the local NAACP and a commissary employee say it was blatant racism.

The picture of the first black president accompanied a sign near the entrance listing the government-run military grocery store's operating hours on for Presidents Day. The store will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Employees took the sign down after customers complained that the holiday wasn't about the current president, according to the Defense Commissary Agency, which oversees the base grocery stores.

Rosemary Harris, president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said something more sinister was afoot.

"It bodes poorly for the progress that we hoped we would see in this country; we might have taken one step forward but we see many steps being taken backwards," she said Friday. More