Calls for Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge to be renamed after Rep. John Lewis have increased in wake of his death.
The Georgia congressman died Friday at age 80 of pancreatic cancer. He was a leader in the civil rights movement, having been jailed multiple times in non-violent protests.
On “Bloody Sunday,” March 17, 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis was among the protesters marching for voting rights who were brutally beaten by 150 Alabama state troopers. Despite suffering a fractured skull, Lewis, who at the time was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), testified about the attack a week later.
The Pettus Bridge, built over the Alabama River, is named for a decorated Confederate general and a leader in the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, according to Smithsonian Magazine. It was dedicated in May 1940, decades after Pettus’ 1907 death. He served in United States Senate from 1897 to 1907.
Credit: BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJ
Credit: BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJ
Rather than have the historic bridge be named after Pettus, petition supporters want it to memorialize Lewis.
“It’s far past time to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge after Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon that nearly gave his life on that bridge,” Michael Starr Hopkins, who created the petition and accompanying website, said on the petition’s page. “Edmund Pettus was a bitter racist, undeserving of the honor bestowed upon him. As we wipe away this country’s long stain of bigotry, we must also wipe away the names of men like Edmund Pettus.”
On Twitter, posts have circulated with links to the petition and calls to change the bridge name.
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But not everyone agrees with those calls, calling for change to voting laws and other actions to memorialize Lewis instead.
Despite some criticism, at the time of this story’s publication, a Change.org petition in support of the effort has amassed more than 420,000 signatures.
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