Politics

Civil Rights Landmark Bridge is Named for Reputed KKK Leader

Published

11 years ago

March 4, 2015

In this March 21, 1965 file photo, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights marchers cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., heading for capitol, Montgomery, during a five day, 50 mile walk to protest voting laws. The Edmund Pettus Bridge gained instant immortality as a civil rights landmark when white police beat demonstrators marching for black voting rights 50 years ago this week in Selma, Alabama. Whats less known is that the bridge is named for a reputed leader of the early Ku Klux Klan. Now, a student group wants to rename the bridge that will be the backdrop when President Barack Obama visits Selma on Saturday, March 7, 2015. (AP Photo/File)

JAY REEVES, Associated Press
ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — When the nation’s first black president steps onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge to honor the marchers beaten there 50 years ago, he’ll be standing on a structure that’s at once synonymous with the civil rights struggle and a tribute to a reputed Ku Klux Klan leader.

The latter fact had all but faded from local memory until recently, when a Selma student group launched an online petition to rename the landmark bridge.

During his 50th anniversary address Saturday, President Barack Obama will be flanked on one side by a new historic marker commemorating “Bloody Sunday,” when white police beat demonstrators marching for black voting rights on March 7, 1965. The sign, erected earlier this year by the state tourism department, notes Obama’s 2007 appearance there just before his election and the accolades for “Selma,” the recent film about the march.

It offers no details about Edmund Winston Pettus, a Confederate general and U.S. senator who lived in Selma after the Civil War. The Encyclopedia of Alabama, an online database sponsored by the University of Alabama, Auburn University and the Alabama Department of Education, says Pettus held the title of grand dragon of the Alabama Klan in 1877 — an assertion that’s questioned by some historians.

Just beyond the other end of the bridge, a billboard erected recently bears a heroic image of another Confederate general, Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. The ad, sponsored by a group dedicated to honoring Forrest, invites visitors to see Selma’s “War Between the States” historic sites; next month is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Selma, in which Forrest fought.

As the “Bloody Sunday” anniversary approaches, a student group in Selma is petitioning to rename the bridge, whose twin metal arches soar above the murky Alabama River. The online petition, addressed to Selma Mayor George Patrick Evans and to the National Parks Service, has been up for about two weeks. It does not propose a new name for the bridge.

John Gainey, executive director of Students UNITE, a racially integrated youth group that began the petition, said having a white supremacist’s name attached to the city’s most visible landmark illustrates the city’s deep racial divisions a half-century after the marchers were beaten at the bridge.

Just as in the 1960s, Gainey said, Selma is split by race. Blacks attend public schools, most whites go to private academies and many blacks still live in run-down shanties while whites occupy nice homes with manicured lawns, he said. Yet the town of nearly 20,000 people is about 80 percent black.

“We think it really does represent something larger,” said Gainey.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a veteran civil rights leader, agrees the bridge’s name should be changed to quit honoring someone with alleged Klan ties.

“They’re responsible for too much death and misery. We don’t need to honor them,” said Lowery, a lieutenant of Martin Luther King Jr. who participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march. “I’m with the kids. Let’s change it.”

However, Selma historian Alston Fitts doubts Pettus had anything to do with the KKK. Although the city was a hub of racial animus in the 1960s, Selma was known as a “safe place” for blacks aligned with liberal Republicans after the Civil War during Reconstruction partly because of a lack of Klan activity, he said.

“He was a pretty lousy Klan leader if that’s what he was,” said Fitts.

Pettus’ views on race were widely known during Reconstruction. In July 1871, when Pettus testified before a congressional committee investigating the Klan, he made it clear he believed whites, not blacks, were the victims in the post-Civil War South.

Pettus asserted that any campaign of intimidation was being waged by Republicans and “carpet-baggers” seeking to incite blacks to commit “acts of aggression on their part against the white people,” according to congressional archives.

Michael Fitzgerald, a professor of history at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, is researching a book on Reconstruction-era Alabama. He said he hasn’t found “persuasive evidence” that Pettus was a Klan officer or even member, but he said Pettus was “almost certainly” involved with the White League, a later terrorist organization.

“He is a Confederate general, he is a Democratic leader when white supremacy is their slogan — is what they exist to do,” he said. “What I would say is Edmund Pettus is definitely a strong white supremacist.”

An attorney who entered the Confederate army as a major in 1861 and rose to the rank of brigadier general by 1863, Pettus was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1897 after Reconstruction and served until his death in 1907 at age 86.

Pettus’ legacy was still well known in Selma when the bridge was constructed just east of downtown in 1940, so the span was named for a man revered locally as a tenacious Southern leader. With Jim Crow laws still in effect, blacks had virtually no say in the decision.

And until now, there has never been a serious effort to rename it.

___

Breed, an AP national writer, contributed to this report from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

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15 hours ago

December 25, 2025

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Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

5 days ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.

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Families Across the U.S. Are Facing an ‘Affordability Crisis,’ Says United Way Bay Area

United Way’s Real Cost Measure data reveals that 27% of Bay Area households – more than 1 in 4 families – cannot afford essentials such as food, housing, childcare, transportation, and healthcare. A family of four needs $136,872 annually to cover these basic necessities, while two adults working full time at minimum wage earn only $69,326.

Published

5 days ago

December 20, 2025

Oakland Post

Affordable housing is the greatest concern for consumers, it’s followed by the cost of groceries. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

A national poll released this week by Marist shows that 61% of Americans say the economy is not working well for them, while 70% report that their local area is not affordable. This marks the highest share of respondents expressing concern since the question was first asked in 2011.

According to United Way Bay Area (UWBA), the data underscores a growing reality in the region: more than 600,000 Bay Area households are working hard yet still cannot afford their basic needs.

Nationally, the Marist Poll found that rising prices are the top economic concern for 45% of Americans, followed by housing costs at 18%. In the Bay Area, however, that equation is reversed. Housing costs are the dominant driver of the affordability crisis.

“The national numbers confirm what we’re seeing every day through our 211 helpline and in communities across the region,” said Keisha Browder, CEO of United Way Bay Area. “People are working hard, but their paychecks simply aren’t keeping pace with the cost of living. This isn’t about individual failure; it’s about policy choices that leave too many of our neighbors one missed paycheck away from crisis.”

The Bay Area’s affordability crisis is particularly defined by extreme housing costs:

Housing remains the No. 1 reason residents call UWBA’s 211 helpline, accounting for 49% of calls this year.
Nearly 4 in 10 Bay Area households (35%) spend at least 30% of their income on housing, a level widely considered financially dangerous.
Forty percent of households with children under age 6 fall below the Real Cost Measure.
The impact is disproportionate: 49% of Latino households and 41% of Black households struggle to meet basic needs, compared to 15% of white households.

At the national level, the issue of affordability has also become a political flashpoint. In late 2025, President Donald Trump has increasingly referred to “affordability” as a “Democrat hoax” or “con job.” While he previously described himself as the “affordability president,” his recent messaging frames the term as a political tactic used by Democrats to assign blame for high prices.

The president has defended his administration by pointing to predecessors and asserting that prices are declining. However, many Americans remain unconvinced. The Marist Poll shows that 57% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while just 36% approve – his lowest approval rating on the issue across both terms in office.