Ava DuVernay Joins Effort To Rename Selma Bridge After Rep. John Lewis

Ava DuVernay is helping to raise awareness about efforts to rename Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge after Civil Rights activist and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

DuVernay added her name to a Change.org petition urging Alabama’s governor to change the name of the historic bridge. The filmmaker, who helmed the 2014 drama Selma, about the voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, tweeted a link to the petition on Saturday.

“I’ve just signed a petition about this bridge to dignity as seen in SELMA,” she wrote. “It is named after a KKK grand wizard and confederate warlord. Edmund Pettus Bridge should be the John Lewis Bridge. Named for a hero. Not a murderer. Join this call. It’s past due.”

As of Saturday afternoon, the petition had more than 25,000 signatures.

The bridge is currently named for Edmund Pettus, a U.S. senator, Confederate general, and leader of the Alabama chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Lewis marched with protesters, including Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., across the bridge on March 7, 1965. The day went down in the history books as “Bloody Sunday,” after hundreds of protesters marching for equal rights for African Americans were met by members of the National Guard on horseback, who beat them with batons and used tear gas on them.

Lewis was born in Alabama, and currently represents Georgia’s 5th Congressional District.