Petition to rename Edmund Pettus Bridge after Rep. John Lewis resurfaces

Congressman John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge February 14, 2015. On March 7, 1965  Hosea Williams and John Lewis  led 600 civil rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march for voting rights.  Lewis had no idea  the level of violence that awaited the group on the other side of the bridge. In what would become known around the country as as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and sheriff deputies used tear gas and clubs to break up the march.  Leaving Lewis with a skull fracture and sending more than 50 others to the local hospital for treatment.   BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJC.COM

Credit: Brant Sanderlin/AJC

Credit: Brant Sanderlin/AJC

Congressman John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge February 14, 2015. On March 7, 1965 Hosea Williams and John Lewis led 600 civil rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a march for voting rights. Lewis had no idea the level of violence that awaited the group on the other side of the bridge. In what would become known around the country as as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and sheriff deputies used tear gas and clubs to break up the march. Leaving Lewis with a skull fracture and sending more than 50 others to the local hospital for treatment. BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJC.COM

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.

Selma Alabama was the site of Bloody Sunday, a civil rights movement that would gain the attention of the country.  On Sunday March 7, 1965 Hosea Williams and John Lewis led a group of 600 over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempt to march to Montgomery to demand equal voting rights.  The group was met by police who uses tear gas and clubs to disburse the group, sending more than 50 to the hospital.  BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJC.COM

Credit: BRANT SANDERLIN / BSANDERLIN@AJ

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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.

RELATED: Move to rename ‘Bloody Sunday’ bridge after John Lewis has critics in Selma

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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