Suozzi Joins Rep. Lewis, Members of Congress, Civil Rights Luminaries on Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Alabama

This weekend, Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-Long Island, Queens) joined several members of Congress for a Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama. During the trip, Suozzi and his colleagues, including Rep. John Lewis, visited historic landmarks and memorials of major significance to the struggle for racial equality in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma.

Suozzi also met with noted civil rights luminaries including Minnijean Brown-Trickey, a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine African American teenagers who integrated Little Rock Central High School; Ruby Bridges, the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis; Joan Mulholland, a civil rights activist and Freedom Rider; Rev. James Lawson, who Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world."; and Bettie Mae Fikes, gospel singer known as the “voice of Selma”.

“This weekend, I had the great honor of joining my friend Congressman John Lewis, along with my colleagues and many civil rights luminaries, as we commemorated the 55th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. I continue to remain and am further inspired by the ideas of the civil rights movement; that all men and women are created equal and that truth and non-violence will set us free," said Suozzi. “Being present at these now sacred sites from our nation’s civil rights history, along with some of those who selflessly fought for racial equality, was both humbling and powerful.” 

On Friday Suozzi visited several sites including the Memorial of Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people and people terrorized by lynching. He also visited the interactive Legacy Museum, located on the site of a former warehouse where black people were enslaved, which immerses visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world’s largest prison system. 

On Saturday, Suozzi met with Ruby Bridges, Minnijean Brown-Trickey, Joan Mulholland, along with other leaders from the civil rights movement. The delegation also visited more historical landmarks including the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, which became associated with the Montgomery bus boycott and the Freedom Riders, and the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which was the headquarters of the civil rights movement.

Finally, on Sunday, the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Suozzi joined Rep. John Lewis, Bettie Mae Fikes (gospel singer known as the “voice of Selma”), and many others on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was here that voting rights marchers were violently confronted by law enforcement personnel on March 7, 1965. The march resumed on Sunday, March 21, with court-ordered protection. By this time 3,200 marchers, versus the initial 600, headed east out of Selma, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and on to Montgomery. Marchers walked 12 miles a day and slept in fields. By the time they reached the state capitol on Thursday, March 25, they were 25,000-strong. Less than five months later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.