Selma, Ala. — Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders and the Institute of the Black World 21st Century are leading the campaign to change the name of the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Currently the bridge is named in honor of a former Confederate brigadier general, Democratic Party U.S. Senator from Alabama who was also the Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. Pettis was known to use violence, terror and murder to deny Blacks the right to vote after Reconstruction.
The campaign is demanding the bridge, that carries U.S. Route 80 across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama, be renamed the Amelia Boynton Robinson Bridge in honor of the Mother of the modern Voting Rights Movement. To sign the petition click on the link.
Amelia Boynton Robinson was a civil rights pioneer who championed voting rights for African-Americans. She was brutally beaten for helping to lead a 1965 civil rights march, which became known as Bloody Sunday and drew national attention to the Civil Rights Movement. She was also the first black woman to run for Congress in Alabama. Robinson died on August 26, 2015 (eight days after her 104th birthday).
