The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
July 24, 2020

Body of Rep. John Lewis to Lie in State at U.S. Capitol
-------------------------------------------------------

Memorials for the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis will
be held over the next week. He will lie in state at the Alabama Capitol
in Montgomery and the Capitol Rotunda in Washington. An unprecedented
public viewing will also take place outside on the steps of the U.S.
Capitol. This weekend a military honor guard will accompany his body for
a final crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he
was almost beaten to death in 1965 while marching for voting rights.
There is a growing movement to rename the bridge after Lewis. Edmund
Pettus was a Confederate officer, U.S. Senator and a grand dragon of the
Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile in Virginia, the Fairfax County School Board has
voted to change the name of a local high school from Robert E. Lee to
John R. Lewis.


.