[Huffpoo] Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Friday recalled the day known as "Bloody Sunday" ― when he and several hundred others marched the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama in 1965 ― while campaigning for Stacey Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Georgia.
"I gave a little blood on that bridge in Selma, 53 years ago," Lewis told the crowd at a rally. "I almost died. Some of my friends and colleagues were murdered in Mississippi and other places."
The congressman and voting rights activist was 25 years old when he had his head fractured by law enforcement officers while peacefully marching along the bridge over the Alabama River to Montgomery in March 7, 1965. The march intended to call attention to black disenfranchisement in the South and followed the slaying of activist Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was shot by a state trooper during a peaceful civil rights protest. |