Tribute to Lewis

While I often disagree with Joyce Ferriabough Bolling’s Boston Herald op-ed pieces, a recent commentary (“Renaming Pettus Bridge not good enough for John Lewis,” Boston Herald) had me in agreement. The best way to remember Congressman John Lewis is not to rename a bridge in Alabama named after a Confederate general and grand dragon of the Klan in his honor.

I was a 16-year-old kid from Roxbury when I remembered watching the news clips of what happened at the Edmund Pettus Bridge at a march to the Alabama state capitol. They were taken upon by law enforcement and beaten on what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” on March 7, 1965. John Lewis then only 25 years old. like so many others was badly injured for standing up for his rights.

History is important as are those who lived history like Lewis. He called what he accomplished as getting into “good trouble.” He became known as one of the central characters in the fight for civil rights.

Today when we think of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, we think of the courage of those who sought their rights and an end to segregation. Today, the name of a long-ago Confederate general and Klansman is now tied to the civil rights struggle forever.

Lewis wasn’t only talking the talk but walking the walk. He was never an innocent bystander, he followed in the footsteps of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. in a march that continues to this day.

The best way to honor Lewis is to stand up for what is good in America and to work to make it always better.

— Sal Giarratani, East Boston