America Mourns the Loss of Civil Rights Icon Rep. John Lewis; Momentum Grows to Rename Bridge in Selma in Honor of John Lewis.
PHILLIP: As we await official word on the funeral arrangements for the civil rights icon John Lewis, people across the country are making time to say their own final farewells.</s>BLACKWELL: Take a look at this mural of the longtime congressman, several stories high here. This is in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn neighborhood. It's a place where people are coming to. You can see under the banner there, they've come to place flowers and gathered to discuss the late congressman. We know that the Georgia Democratic Party executive committee will meet tomorrow to discuss who will run for his seat in November. He held that seat for more than 30 years. And today, take a look at the front page of the "Washington Post" featuring the congressman, calling him a faithful saint of civil rights.</s>PHILLIP: One way to pay tribute to John Lewis is gaining momentum is to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in his honor.</s>BLACKWELL: Now, the bridge is the site of the brutal crackdown by police on Lewis and other civil rights foot soldiers in 1965. It carries the name of former Alabama senator, Confederate general, KKK leader. Michael Starr Hopkins is the founder of the John Lewis Bridge Project. With us also, Caroline Williams, a poet and author and descendant of Edmund Pettus. Michael, let me start with you. I just want you to make the case for changing the name of the bridge.</s>MICHAEL STARR HOPKINS, FOUNDER, JOHN LEWIS BRIDGE PROJECT: You know, it's time to take down the name of Edmund Pettus. Edmund Pettus was a Confederate general and was a senior member in the Ku Klux Klan. If we ever truly want to wipe away the scene of bigotry, we have to wipe away the names of men like Edmund Pettus. To honor Edmund Pettus by keeping his name on a bridge is antithetical to everything that this country should represent. So, if we want to live up to obligations, live up to who we say we are, then we can start by removing his name and putting up the name of someone who has been a hero, someone who has stood for what's best in the country. Not what's worst.</s>PHILLIP: And a couple of weeks ago, Caroline, you wrote an op-ed that got attention. It was entitled in part, my body is a Confederate monument weighing on this issue. I just want you to read a little bit of this op-ed where you explain your connection to Edmund Pettus and to this bridge.</s>CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS, POET: I would love to. Thank you so much for having me. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don't just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I've got a rebel gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma's Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great, great granddaughter.</s>PHILLIP: What do you make, Caroline, of this push to rename the bridge?</s>WILLIAMS: It's honestly exactly what I, you know, wanted, hoped would be an outcome of having the conversation the way that I meant to have it when I wrote the article because the whole point was people who are related to the people that are honored in these monuments, they have to be part of helping tear them down. I was sort of feeling an absence of white voices doing that work, but I thought I know I'm related to one. So I will model the behavior that I'm hoping to see and learn that from teaching and be my role as an educator. So, I am so excited that I know my roots enough to be able to help with the charge to rename something named after the ancestor that I don't wish to honor.</s>BLACKWELL: Michael, let me ask you. Joanne Bland, there are some people who disagree with the move to rename them. Joanne Bland was 12 years old when she watched her sister be beaten there on Bloody Sunday. An she opposes the renaming. We spoke with NPR. Here's ha she said -- what she said.</s>JOANNE BLAND, CO-FOUNDER, NATIONAL VOTING RIGHTS MUSEUM IN SELMA, ALABAMA: I loved him with all my heart. A great man, who loved</s>BLACKWELL: What's your response? The juxtaposition of his name being there and what happened there that the world saw is the reason to keep the name.</s>HOPKINS: At the end of the day, this should be up to the people of Selma to make this decision. But what is the most important thing is taking down Edmund Pettus' name. That's what I believe. And so, we're trying to work hand in hand with the Selma community to move this forward, because honoring Edmund Pettus is the first step in the problem. But taking down his name, then the community, in tandem with the country, can talk about how we best move forward. Whether it's the John Lewis name or whether it's other names. But I think fostering this dialogue, communities having reconciliation is so important. It's why that article is so moving. When I started this process, I said I wanted to see John Lewis one last time be able to walk under that bridge and see his name. Unfortunately, that won't happen. But I do know he's watching us from above and hoping that we will continue his work. By continuing that work, that means working to improve Selma, to build it up, to build tourism, to build education, and to bring our country together, because this has been a hard year. And the best way that we can serve 2020 is to find a way to come together and rebuild this country.</s>BLACKWELL: So, quickly, before we move on, you -- although you lead the John Lewis Bridge Initiative and started this petition with 450,000 signatures now, I checked this morning, you are OK with it being named with more than just John Lewis. Because there are some in Selma, descendants of people who were there and people who are actually foot soldiers that day who think it should be more inclusive than just the congressman.</s>HOPKINS: I support the people of Selma and what they decide the name should be. I put forth a name as a suggestion. I think the John Lewis Bridge is a great name. But the people in Selma are the people whose voices need to be heard the most. And this can be a collective effort. This doesn't need to be one where people who aren't from there are coming in and tell them what to do. This is one where we can have our voices heard. As we continue to have that dialogue, we're going to come together and really shock the world.</s>BLACKWELL: OK.</s>PHILLIP: And, Caroline, one of the things that's at the epicenter of this debate, what do you do with the bad parts of history? I mean, what do you think should -- is the value of removing a name of someone like Edmund Pettus? Do you think there's any risk of losing the context even if it is awful and negative and nobody wants to be associated with it?</s>WILLIAMS: I'm so glad you asked that question. I think the word context is critical to the answer. I think that I'm so excited by Michael's initiative. I actually put my petition during the commercial break before we came on this morning. I want -- I think that when we take the name down, we have to know what's going up, because I think that taking -- leaving just gaps that can be filled in with something innocuous or something that feels maybe not attached to the point at all is always a risk if we don't have a plan for what's going up when we take it down. I do feel urgently, that if and when the name comes off, because we know how swiftly and efficiently erasure has worked in the past in this country. I think some markers saying it was the Edmund Pettus Bridge but that in a step toward progress, we renamed it. And I think about the woman who spoke about not wanting to rename it because how transformative that social justice happened because it was named that and John Lewis, you know, made his life's work about rectifying some of the wrongs that were part of the groundwork of things that Edmund Pettus did. I think that that is so visceral and complicated, but I also think that part of the next step of that transformation is to find a way to not have to live walking under the name of a man who committed those kind of crimes against humanity is what I'd call them. And so, I do want the name to be revised. I do think that we need to have a plan about what the name will be before we move forward.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this initiative is certainly getting a lot of support. South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn, Terry Sowell there in Alabama, Senator Doug Jones supporting it, several celebrities. Thank you so much for the conversation, Caroline Randall Williams and Michael Starr Hopkins. Good to have you this morning.</s>MICHAEL STARR HOPKINS, FOUNDER, JOHN LEWIS BRIDGE PROJECT: Thank you.</s>WILLIAMS: Thank y'all.</s>BLACKWELL: And we'll be right back.