.byronpitts says John Lewis' biggest concern when crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday was that he might be tossed off the bridge because he couldn't swim - but he was willing to go forward anyway.
Celebrating John Lewis: Civil Rights IconMore than five decades after he was slammed in the head by a white police officer's billy club during a march with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama,In an emotional procession that symbolizes the 80-year-old Lewis' lifelong work for civil rights, hundreds of mourners will join a procession to escort the congressman's casket across the 1,284-foot bridge spanning the Alabama River.
The somber journey brought Lewis full-circle to the spot he almost died as a 25-year-old on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers attacked him and other civil rights demonstrators in an incident that became known as"Bloody Sunday.""I was hit with a billy club, and I saw the state trooper that hit me," Lewis would recall later during a federal hearing."I was hit twice, once when I was lying down and was attempting to get up.
Rose petals representing the blood spilled on Bloody Sunday are seen on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, before the start of the procession of late U.S. Congressman John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the House of Representatives who died July 17, in Selma, Alabama, July 26, 2020.
Rose petals representing the blood spilled on Bloody Sunday are seen on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, before the start of the procession of late U.S. Congressman John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the House of Representatives who died July 17, in Selma, Alabama, July 26, 2020.
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