The Edmund Pettus Bridge is a symbol of hatred, not heritage. We’re taking down the flag; now let’s change the name of Selma’s historic bridge. I live in Selma, Alabama, a beautiful city where hundreds of civil rights demonstrators marching over the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery were met with police wielding billy clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 — a date now known as “Bloody Sunday.” It’s also a city where weekend-long celebrations of the Confederacy take place, where a memorial honors a Klansman and where a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement is named after Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general and a leader of Alabama’s Ku Klux Klan. The tragedy in Charleston …
The Edmund Pettus Bridge is a symbol of hatred, not heritage. We’re taking down the flag; now let’s change the name of Selma’s historic bridge.
I live in Selma, Alabama, a beautiful city where hundreds of civil rights demonstrators marching over the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery were met with police wielding billy clubs and tear gas on March 7, 1965 — a date now known as “Bloody Sunday.” It’s also a city where weekend-long celebrations of the Confederacy take place, where a memorial honors a Klansman and where a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement is named after Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general and a leader of Alabama’s Ku Klux Klan.
The tragedy in Charleston renewed the national debate about Confederate flags and monuments. Flags have been taken down and removed from store shelves, and Alabama Governor Robert Bentley has removed the Confederate flag from our state capitol. Now it is time to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge so that it too can reflect our nation’s progress, not its stagnation.
Last month, the Alabama Senate passed a resolution in support of changing the bridge’s name to Freedom Bridge, but the resolution never made it to the House for a vote. Some argued that changing the name would rewrite history. Others, including Congressman John Lewis, who marched across the bridge in 1965 in support of voting rights, said that renaming the bridge would be a mistake and that its current name is a reminder of how far we’ve come.
But for Dylan Roof and others who would kill in the name of white supremacy, the Confederate battle flag and monuments honoring KKK leaders are not symbols of heritage or history. They don’t remind them of the civil rights victories that we have won. They act as inspiration, even justification, for the spread of hate and unthinkable violence.
During his eulogy for Senator Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine people Dylan Roof murdered, President Obama made a powerful statement about the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina capitol.
Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong — the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong.
I’m not upset with Dylann Roof. Like the families of his victims, I’ve already forgiven him. He wasn’t born with a Confederate flag in his hand; he wasn’t a white supremacist at birth. He learned every thought present in his racist and hateful “manifesto” during the 21 years of his life. Dylann is a byproduct of a system that celebrates ideologies and oppressive symbols founded on hatred and fear.
That is why I, along with other young people in Selma, will continue to call for the Edmund Pettus Bridge to renamed. Our Selma-based organization Students UNITE started a petition on Change.org in support of renaming the bridge — over 180,000 people have signed it.
For too long, we have clung to symbols of our nation’s segregated and unequal history. Jon Stewart calls it racist wallpaper, and that’s exactly right. Only the wallpaper matches the drapes. And the carpet. And the upholstery. Our house was built on a racist foundation. It’s time to press forward toward equality in our action, our interactions, our politics, and our surroundings.
Rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge, because Selma is now. Visit
www.change.org/Selma
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