Isakson and Lewis Lead Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama
- Post 01 March 2013
- By Special to the Daily World
- Hits: 541
US Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) announced recently that he will serve as a Senate co-leader of the annual Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to historic sites of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama from March 1 through March 3.
The three-day event, which is led annually by Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, will culminate with a commemorative march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where Lewis was beaten unconscious in 1965 as he tried to lead several hundred protestors across the bridge to demonstrate the need for voting rights.
The pilgrimage, which is organized by the Faith & Politics Institute, will travel to Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, commemorating the 50th anniversaries of pivotal civil rights events such as the desegregation of the University of Alabama, the Birmingham children's crusade, the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and the Martin Luther King Jr. letters from the Birmingham jail.
The pilgrimage will culminate as it always has with Congressman Lewis leading a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Congressman Lewis has returned to Selma nearly every year since his beating during the 1965 march he led there.
"I am extremely honored to be a Senate co-leader of this year's Civil Rights pilgrimage to Alabama with my friend John Lewis. John is a hero for his bravery during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and his efforts continue to pave the way for equality, liberty and freedom for all," Isakson said. "This is the 50th anniversary of so many pivotal civil rights events, and I am humbled to make this pilgrimage to Alabama alongside John Lewis."
Isakson will serve as a Senate co-leader of the pilgrimage along with Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are the House co-leaders of the pilgrimage. Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama also will serve as honorary co-hosts of the event.
Comments
now famous 16th street baptist church/Birmingh am Civil Rights Institute(BCRI) . Annually the Selma
Commemorative march welcome all participants from across the country. In past years how many
times has House Majority Leader Cantor participated? This year is he being a hypocrite, performing
a ruse while the GOP continues to "kick the can down the road" until the republican party can "re-brand"
and continue obstruction to President Obama? His actions in 2013 are obscene to me because approximately
35 miles from his district is the city of Petersburg which contain the historical American Civil war "Pocahontas
Island" that contain the Richard A. Stewart museum(slave items and confederate artifacts). Why is it he has
never visited Pocahontas Island and this black history related museum? Hypocrisy again?
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