John Lewis taking final ride over Selma bridge

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John Lewis taking final ride over Selma bridge

Updated 11:15 AM; Today 8:11 AM

By Connor Sheets | csheets@al.com

Alabama is spending this weekend honoring one of its most beloved and revered sons. Born in Troy, beaten in Selma, reviled by racists in Montgomery and ultimately elected to the U.S. Congress and inducted into the pantheon of great American icons, the body of John Lewis is touring his home state one last time.

Lewis lay in repose outside Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma Saturday evening, following a service at the historic church that played a crucial role in the world-changing events of “Bloody Sunday.” Earlier in the day a memorial service was held in his hometown.

On Sunday morning, the civil rights leader’s body was taken for the final time across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of an event that helped define his place in history. This time, rather than have a violent reception, Lewis rode over a rose petal strewn highway over the bridge. Crowds lined the streets of Selma leading to the bridge over the Alabama River.

Lewis’ coffin was transferred over to a hearse by a military honor guard, once over the other side of the bridge, for the ride to Montgomery.

Lewis was infamously beaten by state troopers as he attempted to cross the span at the beginning of the landmark voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery that he led alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965. Many across the country and around the world are now calling for the bridge to be renamed for Lewis, though some area advocates are pushing for it instead to be named for a civil rights activist or leader from Selma.

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, Alabama’s first Black congresswoman and a Selma native, was among the speakers at a service this morning at Brown Chapel. “My heart is full knowing that John is crossing that bridge today.”

“John has left this earth but his legacy lives on,” Sewell said. “John believed firmly that the best days of this nation are ahead of us.”

“I hope that his passing moves us as a nation to rededicate ourselves to getting into good trouble, necessary trouble,” Sewell said.

Tyler Scott,14, who came with his family from August, Ga., was among those who came to Selma to witness Sunday’s event. He had met John Lewis in Selma in 2017 and marched across the bridge with him then.

“With Mr. Lewis dying it’s another strong hit to our community this year,” Scott said. “Reading about him in school and what he did here with Martin Luther King, it was a big moment and an accomplishment to get to meet him and march across the bridge with him in 2017.”

Joe Smitherman, who marched with Lewis on Bloody Sunday, was also in the crowd. He is not the former mayor of Selma who has the same name. “We learned from John Lewis. He’s the one who taught us how to march and advocate for our rights, how to be non violent.” “I come to give my honor to John Lewis for the work he did when he was here to teach us non-violence and support the Voting Rights Act.”

“The message I give to honor John Lewis is to go out and vote and speak your piece like he did and don’t turn around,” Smitherman said.

Betty Boynton, who marched in 1965 along with Lewis and others, also stood awaiting the procession. “I’m 73-years old and that’s a day I will never forget. It was the worst day you’ll ever see.”

“I come to honor John Lewis because he went across the bridge as a leader, to get our voting rights and because Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed. There was two purposes,” Boynton said.

Jackson, who was unarmed, was beaten and shot to death the month before Bloody Sunday by state troopers while participating in a voting rights march in the Perry County town of Marion. Jackson’s death led to the marches that would follow.

Once on the other side of the bridge spanning the Alabama River, his body will again make that 54-mile journey from the Black Belt town that became a household name that bloody day to Montgomery, where his body will be received by mourners and will again lie in repose, this time inside the state capitol building.

The evening will conclude with a vigil for Lewis hosted by Montgomery Mayor Steven L. Reed, expected to be attended by a number of prominent civil rights leaders. From there, his body will leave Alabama and continue on to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, where his casket will be viewable by members of the public on Monday and Tuesday before being taken on to Atlanta on Wednesday, where he will lie in state in the Georgia Capitol Rotunda in advance of his Thursday funeral and burial in Georgia, the state he represented in Congress for more than three decades.

Lewis is seen as one of America’s bravest and most consequential advocates for equality, racial integration, voting rights and fairness. In recent decades, he was seen as a living legend, one of the most public of the remaining leaders from the civil rights era.

Lewis died July 17 of pancreatic cancer, concluding a life that began with poverty and hardship - his parents were sharecroppers - and ended at age 80 as one of the most respected figures in American public life.

As a young activist, Lewis was a strong voice, offering biting critiques of the U.S. political system and institutionalized racism during his remarks as the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in August 1963. He was a Freedom Rider and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. For 33 years, he served in Congress, leading the charge for greater access to the ballot, expanding civil rights and other progressive causes. Renowned for his grace, perseverance and dedication, Lewis has been an inspiration to generations of leaders, including President Barack Obama, who published his thoughts about Lewis following his death earlier this month.

“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise,” Obama wrote. “And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”