Edmond Pettus was born #OTD in 1821 in Limestone County, Alabama. He served as an officer in the Confederate Army and as a US senator after the War. He was also active in the Ku Klux Klan, serving as its Grand Dragon in Alabama. He is the namesake of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 
Born into an enslaving family, Pettus built a successful law career before enlisting in the Confederate Army when war broke out. While most of his home region of northern Alabama did not support secession, Pettus did. He was a pro-slavery ideologue steered by white supremacy.
During the War he rose to the rank of Brig. General and was captured as a POW three times. He was pardoned by Andrew Johnson on October 30, 1865. Pettus returned to Selma after the War and resumed his law practice.
He was also active in Reconstruction politics and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the paramilitary arm of the Democratic Party, the party of white supremacy at the time. He was named a Grand Wizard of the Klan in 1877.
He was elected to the US Senate in 1896 by pandering to white racial animosity in Alabama. Pettus died in Hot Springs, North Carolina in 1907.
On March 7, 1965, peaceful Black protestors were viciously attacked by police after crossing the bridge that bares Edmund Pettus' name while advocating for voting rights. The attack became one of the most infamous moments of the African American Freedom Struggle.
Nearly 100 years after the Civil War ended and almost 60 years after he died, Edmund Pettus' name was again directly associated with violence that targeted Black Alabamans. His name and legacy were as inseparable to white supremacy as the man himself.
For decades, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been whittled down to a splinter of what it once was, a process Pettus would have no doubt supported.
Before his death, Civil Rights icon and Alabama Senator John Lewis, who marched and was beaten on Bloody Sunday, introduced the The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 in an attempt to reinforce the 1965 VRA. It remains stalled in the Senate.
Although there have been calls to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge to honor the late John Lewis, the bridge still dons Pettus' name.
#TheCivilWarDoc #onthisday #onthisdayinhistory #TodayinHistory #BloodySunday #CivilRights #VotingRights #VotingRightsAct #JohnLewis
#TheCivilWarDoc #onthisday #onthisdayinhistory #TodayinHistory #BloodySunday #CivilRights #VotingRights #VotingRightsAct #JohnLewis
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Error check. Rep. John Lewis served in the US House of Representatives, not the Senate. Apologies!
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