I've driven over the Edmund Pettus bridge more times than I could imagine. And every time driving up to it making the curve where it comes into view and where the the lines met and there on the bridge in a stark contrast "Edmund Pettus Bridge" and the images float through your mind, the black and white footage, the nicely dressed marchers running head first into the hard hat wearing baton welding Alabama State Troopers, all with that name on that bridge hoovering above, forever titling the event. And now a move to rename it to the John Lewis bridge. That makes it about one person when it was about the many and the event in total and that name on the bridge was that day and should remain etched in history. It's so we keep the event clearly in our minds the history in all it's ugliness. Name the stretch of highway for Lewis but don't change the name of the bridge. And John Lewis would agree Dropping ‘Pettus’ Is a Bridge Too Far John Lewis’s case for keeping the name of a white supremacist. ..... John Lewis disagreed. “We must tell our story fully rather than hide the chapters we wish did not exist,” Reps. Lewis and Terri Sewell (D., Ala.) wrote in a 2015 op-ed. “As Americans we need to learn the unvarnished truth about what happened in Selma.” Unlike the schools and military bases named after Confederates and segregationists, the Edmund Pettus Bridge is central to the story of black freedom in the U.S. We can rename schools and military bases without eroding that larger story. Not so for the Pettus Bridge, which has become a major landmark of the civil rights struggle. “Keeping the name of the Bridge is not an endorsement of the man who bears its name,” Lewis and Ms. Sewell wrote. “The Edmund Pettus name represents the truth of the American story. You can change the name but you cannot change the facts of history.” ........ “Symbols are indeed powerful,” Lewis and Ms. Sewell wrote in 2015. “A bridge named after a man who inflamed racial hatred is now known worldwide as a symbol of equality and justice.” Everyone who sees footage of John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge will understand that, so long as it retains Pettus’s name. It would be a shame to change it in the name of a great man who realized why it should remain. https://www.wsj.com/articles/dropping-pettus-is-a-bridge-too-far-11596040679?mod=opinion_lead_pos10
Agreed. WHAAAAAAAT? Few know or care who Pettis was. But most at least obliquely know the history of what happened there. So, I do agree, for those reasons, leave the name. But, how about this. Take the bridge and a 1/4 mile on either side and declare it a national monument named The John Lewis National Memorial.
As I said name that strip of highway. The National Civil Rights Museum is there and it IS a National Memorial. It shouldn't be about the one man.
Edmund Pettus was a Confederate Officer and a Grand Dragon of the KKK. So, not only do I support changing the name, they should do it NOW!
Did you skip reading the OP? “Keeping the name of the Bridge is not an endorsement of the man who bears its name,” Lewis and Ms. Sewell wrote. “The Edmund Pettus name represents the truth of the American story. You can change the name but you cannot change the facts of history.”
