In Selma, a 'final crossing' for John Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
Updated: 12:33 p.m.
The body of John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge one last time on Sunday in what organizers described as "The Final Crossing," part of a multiday celebration of the life of the civil rights icon.
A crowd began gathering near the bridge that became a landmark in the fight for racial justice when Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten there 55 years ago on “Bloody Sunday," a key event in the fight for voting rights for African Americans.
A horse-drawn hearse retraced the route through Selma from Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the 1965 march began. As the wagon approached the bridge, members of the crowd shouted “Thank you, John Lewis!" and “Good trouble,” the phrase Lewis used to describe his tangles with white authorities during the civil rights movement.
Some crowd members sang the gospel song “Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed on Jesus.” Later, some onlookers sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” and other gospel tunes.
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The hearse paused atop the bridge over the Alabama River as the cicadas sang in the summer heat. On the south side of the bridge, where Lewis was beaten by Alabama state troopers in 1965, family members placed roses that the carriage rolled over, marking the spot where Lewis spilled his blood and suffered a head injury.
As a military honor guard lifted Lewis' casket from the horse-drawn wagon into an automobile hearse, state troopers, including some African American ones, saluted Lewis.
Lewis' body will be brought to the Alabama Capitol in the afternoon to lie in repose.
A series of events began Saturday in Lewis' hometown of Troy, Alabama, to pay tribute the late congressman and his legacy. He will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol next week before his private funeral Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once led.
1965 march
In March 1965, a 25-year-old Lewis and hundreds of other civil rights advocates planned to march from Selma to Montgomery to draw attention to the need for voting rights in the state, which was infamous for denying African Americans the right to vote.
"We're marching today to dramatize to the nation, dramatize to the world, the hundreds and thousands of Negro citizens of Alabama that are denied the right to vote," Lewis said. "We intend to march to Montgomery to present said grievance to Governor George C. Wallace."
But as Lewis led the group across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, he saw a line of white Alabama state troopers blocking their path. The commander's orders were clear: Wallace had proclaimed the march illegal.
"You're ordered to disperse," said Maj. John Cloud of the Alabama Department of Public Safety. "Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue."
Lewis and his group did not disperse.
"Troopers, here, advance toward the group," Cloud said.
The line of troopers walked forward, billy clubs out. They knocked Lewis to the ground and struck him on his head. He tried to get up; they hit him again with the billy club. His skull was fractured.
"I thought I was going to die," Lewis told NPR in 2010. "I thought I saw death."
Lewis didn't die that day. Images from "Bloody Sunday," as it came to be known, were broadcast across the nation. The ensuing coverage helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. And it catapulted Lewis onto the national stage and a more than 30-year career in Congress as a representative from Georgia.
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