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John Lewis' Body will Cross Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Sunday

VOA News

   The body of U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis will be
   carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama Sunday.

   The event at the place where he and other voting rights demonstrators
   were beaten in 1965 on a day known as "Bloody Sunday" begins the second
   of six days of memorials for Lewis, who died July 17 at the age 80,
   after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer.

   Later Sunday, Lewis' body will be taken to Alabama's capital,
   Montgomery, where Mayor Steven Reed is encouraging people to line the
   sidewalks on the final leg of the journey. Officials are asking the
   public to wear facemasks and socially distance.

   Alabama Governor Kay Ivey ordered flags to be flown at half-staff on
   Saturday and Sunday in honor of Lewis.

   During the nearly weeklong memorial events, Lewis' body will lie in
   state at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, the Georgia State
   Capitol in Atlanta and the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

   U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
   McConnell announced last week that visitors could pay their respects to
   Lewis at the U.S. Capitol Monday and Tuesday.

   Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the public viewing will take place
   outside the Capitol building instead of in the Capitol Rotunda as is
   traditional. Social distancing will be "strictly enforced" and
   facemasks will be required.

   The Georgia Democrat will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state
   at the Capitol. Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was
   the first.

   Lewis' family said there will also be a procession through Washington
   this week and said members of the public will be able to pay their
   respects in a "socially-distant manner."

   Lewis' funeral will be held Thursday at Atlanta's historic Ebenezer
   Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was once the
   pastor. Following the service, which will be private, Lewis will be
   interred at South View Cemetery in Atlanta.

   Two memorial services were held for Lewis Saturday in Alabama.

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