Lewis, who passed away on July 17 at 80 years old, was nearly killed while helping lead a march for Black voting rights across the Pettus Bridge in 1965. Demonstrators were met with brutal violence by state troopers and police at the bridge. Lewis’ skull was fractured during the attack, now infamously known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’
Rose petals were scattered over Pettus Bridge during Sunday’s ceremony in remembrance.
“One final crossing over Edmund Pettus Bridge,” wrote California Senator Kamala Harris on Twitter Sunday, alongside a video of Lewis’ memorial procession. “An incredibly moving and fitting tribute for John Lewis, a man who carried the baton of justice until the very end. Over the next 100 days, let us pick up that baton and march on to the ballot box in his honor.”
“A nonviolent warrior crossing the bridge where he met physical force with soul force. Farewell,” the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center added.
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay was one of many who highlighted the historical significance of the memorial procession.
“When Alabama state troopers beat and bloodied him on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, could a young John Lewis ever have imagined this day? That he’d live to be 80. That he’d be a lawmaker for decades. That his remains would cross the bridge again, this time lined with roses,” she tweeted.
DuVernay later shared an excerpt from Lewis’ remarks during a march across Pettus Bridge earlier this year, held on Bloody Sunday’s 55th anniversary.
“We were beaten. We were tear-gassed. I thought I was going to die on this bridge. But somehow and some way, God almighty helped me here,” the quote from Lewis read. “We must go out and vote like we never, ever voted before.”
Television host and political commentator Joy Reid shared several messages to Twitter honoring Lewis’ life and legacy on Sunday.
“Good man. Got into good trouble. What better things could be said of a life well lived?” Reid wrote. She celebrated the lasting impacts of Lewis’ work in a second tweet.
“John Lewis’ legacy is vast. And it includes these brilliant Black people on my TV this morning,” Reid said, referencing activists Reverend Al Sharpton, Brittany Packnett and LaTosha Brown, and reporters Jonathan Capehart and Tiffany D. Cross. “I feel sad that he is gone but hopeful.”
Numerous others, including writer and producer Shonda Rhimes and North Carolina House Rep. Chaz Beasley, honored Lewis with messages responding to Sunday’s procession in Selma. Beasley described it as “a fitting tribute to an exception human being” in his remarks on Twitter.
Activists are petitioning to rename the bridge after Lewis in the wake of his death. It is currently named after Edmund Pettus, a Ku Klux Klan leader and former Confederate soldier.
