"I've just signed a petition about this bridge to dignity as seen in SELMA," DuVernay, The Lincoln Project, a super PAC formed by anti-Donald Trump Republicans, quoted, Confederate statues are coming down following George Floyd's death. I’m here because somebody marched for our freedom. But we have got to remember now that Joshua still had a job to do. (CNN)The death of US Rep. John Lewis on Friday has renewed calls to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, after the civil rights legend. That was the purpose of the march in 1965, and that's the purpose of the John Lewis Bridge Project.". "If it was left to Edmund Pettus, people who look like me would still be in shackles," Hopkins told CNN. The bridge became a flash point on March 7, 1965, as protesters, led by Mr. Lewis and other civil rights leaders, were stopped and beaten by state troopers as they marched to Alabama’s capital. The bridge is … Representative Terri Sewell, Democrat of Alabama, said in a statement that although she understood the desire to honor Mr. Lewis’s legacy, a decision to rename the bridge should be made locally in Selma. Harris told the Tom Joyner Morning Show on Wednesday that she will be “marching in Selma this weekend” and crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the “Bridge Crossing Jubilee” before the 53rd anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.”. US Rep. John Lewis speaks to the crowd at the Edmund Pettus Bridge crossing reenactment on March 1, 2020, in Selma, Alabama. In a statement in which he addressed the loss of Mr. Lewis, his longtime friend and colleague, Representative James Clyburn called for the bridge to be named after Mr. Lewis. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. “As a daughter of Selma, I understand the complexities surrounding the renaming of the bridge, and while I personally can think of no better name than that of John Lewis, I ultimately believe the Selma community should decide who it is named after,” Ms. Sewell said. You know I’ve seen so many people focus on that thing down the road, that they trip over the thing right in front of them,” she said. "The idea that we would honor him by allowing his name on the bridge is antithetical for everything this country stands for, especially when we have so many heroes like John Lewis who dedicated their entire lives to bringing the country together.". #CADem2018 pic.twitter.com/BqCOkamwzK, — Krishan Patel (@IAmKrishanPatel) February 24, 2018, LocalPoliticsBarack ObamaKamala HarrisSelma. Alan Reese, a grandson of the Rev. The bridge, which crosses the Alabama River, was dedicated in 1940 and named for Pettus, a lawyer and United States senator who was also a decorated Confederate general and a leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. I stand on the shoulders of giants. When black establishment leaders had doubts about whether then-Senator Barack Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and abroad, could relate to the black American experience, Obama went to Selma in March of 2007 and gave one of the most important speeches of his political life. It's about rebuilding Selma, a primarily African American community that has been forgotten," he said. Hopkins was inspired to launch the petition after attending several Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, DC, where he lives. (CNN) — CNN reported that Civil Rights activist and representative John Lewis led other lawmakers and Civil Rights activists across the Edmund Pettus bridge Sunday. Dr. Reese, who died in 2018, was a member of the Dallas County Voters League, one of the local groups that organized the 1965 voting rights marches in Selma. Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, including some who participated in the Bloody Sunday march. The movement also picked up steam on social media after "Selma" director Ava DuVernay issued a statement supporting the petition to rename the bridge. The bridge became a flash point on March 7, 1965, as protesters, led by Mr. Lewis and other civil rights leaders, were stopped and beaten by state … Lewis, who had his skull broken by white police officers during the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, was diagnosed with stage 4 … I’m focused on the election of 2018. They say the bridge, under its current name, has become a potent symbol of the struggle for civil rights and voting rights. This may turn out to be a historical occasion,” Alabama state Senator Hank Sanders, who is organizing the event, said. At age 25, Lewis helped lead the 1965 march for voting rights on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he and other marchers were met by heavily armed state and local police who brutally beat them with clubs, fracturing Lewis' skull. And that’s been a name that has passed through generations.”. Here's what we know. As great as Moses was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn’t cross over the river to see the promised land. With the death of congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, pressure is mounting to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.. Lewis was … It was on March 7, 1965 — a Sunday — that this bridge and 25-year-old John Lewis were inextricably joined together in… Don’t tell me I’m not coming home when I come to Selma, Alabama. The death of Representative John Lewis on Friday has renewed interest in a campaign to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., the site of a turning point in the fight for civil rights. The effort to rename the bridge for Mr. Lewis has run into opposition from some people in Selma, including some who participated in the Bloody Sunday march. Mr. Hopkins, a lawyer and a founding partner at Northern Starr Strategies, a public relations firm, started a nonprofit called the John Lewis Bridge Project to promote the renaming of the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the “removal of other existing signs of the Confederacy.”, “We’re working hand in hand with the community in Selma,” he said, “which I think is extremely important because, at the end of the day, while the bridge may be a national landmark, historic landmark, it belongs to the people of Selma.”. After his rousing speech, he started winning over the black voters who would form the backbone of his coalition that won him two terms in the White House. Mr. Lewis returned to Selma every year to commemorate the anniversary of the march, whose destination was the state capital in Montgomery. After learning more about this history of the man behind the bridge, Hopkins said he was horrified and immediately started a petition calling for the renaming of the bridge. “Senator Harris is a very powerful speaker and advocate, and many people view her as a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. The effort to rename the bridge is being driven not only by the death of Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, but also by the protests against racism and police brutality that have followed the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in May. Updated 2306 GMT (0706 HKT) July 20, 2020. An online petition created last month to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge after Mr. Lewis has garnered over 400,000 signatures, including that of the director Ava DuVernay, whose Oscar-nominated film “Selma” recreated the Bloody Sunday confrontation. “Right now I am focused on today. Obama asked the audience if his grandfather’s story was familiar and said he owed his existence to the civil rights marchers because “something happened” in Selma, Alabama, and it inspired his father to come to America and eventually meet his white mother while some “good craziness” was going on and something was “stirring across the country” because of what happened in Selma: So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. In 2015, a resolution to rename the bridge was defeated in the Alabama House of Representatives. “Shirley Chisholm had the guts to oppose the Vietnam War. I thank the Moses generation. Named after a former Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, the bridge became the focus of national attention on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers beat demonstrators who were marching for Black voting rights in what became known as Bloody Sunday. “And we cannot afford to trip, when we’re looking at a situation where you’ve got an attorney general who is trying to bring back the war on drugs and resuscitate mandatory minimum sentences.”. “I think you ought to take a nice picture of that bridge with Pettus’s name on it, put it in a museum somewhere dedicated to the Confederacy, and then rename that bridge and repaint it, redecorate it the John R. Lewis Bridge,” said Mr. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina. At last weekend’s California Democratic Convention, she came on stage to the Black Panther soundtrack, and Harris is co-sponsoring a bill to get a Shirley Chisholm statute in the Capitol to honor the first black Congresswoman. The push to rename the bridge comes amid a national conversation around monuments, names and symbols that celebrate the Confederacy and their place in America today. Dr. Frederick D. Reese, a civil rights activist, said many Selma residents, including foot soldiers from the movement who are still living, would not consider a name change unless it were inclusive. It’s a symbol of hope, of freedom. After coming home from one protest "emotionally drained from watching [his] city burn," he decided to watch the film "Selma," where he discovered who Pettus was during a scene depicting the 1965 march. I’m here because y’all sacrificed for me. Rep. John Lewis addressed marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday this year. The guts to run for president in 1972, as the first Black woman to seek the nomination of a major American political party,” she wrote in Essence this week. "It's about making sure kids have access to education, parents have access to better jobs, it's about improving people's lives.

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