Alabama Democrat decries move to rename Selma’s civil rights bridge

An Alabama Democrat is condemning the move to rename Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, a powerful emblem of the civil rights movement.

Pettus was a Confederate Civil War general and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The Alabama senate voted Wednesday to scrub his name from the structure — the site of 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” — and rename it the Journey to Freedom Bridge.

{mosads}But Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) said Thursday that the push is misguided, arguing that “the historical irony” of having a Pettus’s name attached to a symbol of expanded civil rights “is an integral part of the complicated history of Selma.”

“The bridge is an iconic symbol of the struggle for voting rights in America, and its name is as significant as its imposing structure,” Sewell said in a statement. “Changing the name of the bridge would change the course of history and compromise the historical integrity of the voting rights movement.”

The Edmund Pettus Bridge became a touchstone of the civil rights era on March 7, 1965, when hundreds of activists, including now-Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), began marching from Selma to Montgomery to protest race inequality at the polls. They didn’t get far, meeting with the billy clubs of state police and local vigilantes gathered at the east end of the bridge. Lewis, now a 15-term congressman, was beaten savagely.

The clash catalyzed the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act just months later.

Supporters of the bid to rename the bridge say it’s a gesture befitting the societal advancement of blacks since the march.

“There are many things in our society to change that are more significant than the name of a bridge, but removing this vestige of the past will serve as a parallel to the ongoing journey towards equal rights, fair representation and open opportunity,” reads the resolution, sponsored by state Sen. Hank Sanders (D) of Selma.

Sewell disagrees, arguing that keeping Pettus’s name on the span would serve as a better reminder of how to avoid mistakes of the past.

“As inheritors of the legacy surrounding the historical events that took place in Selma, we must safeguard that history — good and bad — and resist attempts to rewrite it,” Sewell said.