Rest in Power, Representative John Lewis
CBS news shared a video of Representative John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge one final time.
This is the bridge in Selma, Alabama that Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., and other civil rights activists crossed on Sunday, March 7, 1965, and were beaten and teargassed by police.
When asked by Rita Braver during an interview in 1998 how he had the courage to do it, he answered: “We had to do it. We had to do it,” he replied. “I think there’s some force, and sometimes I call it the spirit of history, that maybe, just maybe, tracked us down and said, ‘This is your time, and you must do it. If you don’t, who will?'”
Lewis crossed the bridge again in 2015 as part of the 50 year commemoration, and was joined by then-President Barack Obama as one of the marchers.
There’s change.org petition to change the name of the bridge from Edmund Pettus to John Lewis, which is endorsed by several Pettus descendants—my spouse among them.
Rest in power, beloved Ancestor. May our continued work making Good Trouble honor your memory.
