BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Living legend Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., was beaten and bloodied many times in his relentlessly single-minded quest for justice and equality for African Americans. One of the worse incidents is now the site of Congressional celebration — the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in nearby Selma, which was termed “Bloody Sunday” 45 years ago because of the amount of blood spilled by black people at the hands of local and state police.
Several members of Congress, along with actor Terrence Howard, are taking the weekend of March 5-7 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday that helped galvanize worldwide anger and support that led to the Civil Rights revolution. American Airlines was the title sponsor of the 10th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage and Lewis appropriately served as its chairman.
As part of the celebratory weekend, the large delegation of congressional leaders, family members and corporate partners visited several historical landmarks in three cities — Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma — in the state of Alabama, considered the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement.
In Birmingham on Friday, the group visited the legendary 16th Street Baptist Church. It was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963 and killed four little black girls — just two weeks after the famous March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The group also stopped off across the street at Kelly Ingram Park, where many black and white demonstrators were beaten to a pulp for having the audacity to demand equal rights for all americans.
“Those fire hoses could tear the bark off a tree,” Lewis recalls, surrounded by many supporters and admirers. “They would lift black people right off the ground and slam them into the ground where they were beaten by the police.”
The group will drive that night to Montgomery to visit the Rosa Parks Museum, a memorial placed at the very spot where she resisted on the bus that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and culminated in the modern Civil Rights Movement. They will also stop at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where a newly-inducted minister, an unknown 25-year-old by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, was pastor from 1954-1966.
On Sunday, the group will travel to Selma to pay homage to those 600 demonstrators and Lewis who were beaten savagely at Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday”.
We are honored to help commemorate Bloody Sunday and the march from Selma to Montgomery as two pivotal events in the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement,” said Dale Morris, American Airlines’s managing director of State and Community Affairs. “As a youngster I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to hear Dr. King speak. It was a life-changing experience and makes this pilgrimage particularly meaningful to me.” –terry shropshire
