Pettus was a Confederate Civil War general and a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The Alabama senate voted Wednesday to scrub his name from the structure — the site of 1965’s “Bloody Sunday” — and rename it the Journey to Freedom Bridge.
“The bridge is an iconic symbol of the struggle for voting rights in America, and its name is as significant as its imposing structure,” Sewell said in a statement. “Changing the name of the bridge would change the course of history and compromise the historical integrity of the voting rights movement.”