Civil rights hero John Lewis saluted at site of Alabama bridge beating

As horse-drawn hearse approached bridge mourners shouted, 'Thank you, John Lewis'

The late U.S. Congressman John Lewis, a key figure in the civil rights movement and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives, is carried via horse-drawn carriage across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Reuters

A socially-disatnced service at Troy University in Lewis's Alabama hometown. AFP

People watch and record as John Lewis's casket is taken into Brown Chapel Church in Selma, Alabama. AFP

The rose petals represent the blood Lewis spilled on the bridge on 'Bloody Sunday' in 1965. Reuters

This time, there's an honour guard for Lewis. EPA

Mourners wait for the funeral procession. AFP

The horse-drawn carriage carries the body of civil rights icon. AFP

Military pallbearers prepare to place the body of former US Rep. John Lewis into a hearse. AFP

It is the second of six days of ceremonies honouring Lewis. AFP

Military pallbearers wear face masks as part of the coronavirus-enhanced measures for Lewis's memorial. AFP

Mourners have honoured civil rights hero John Lewis by taking his body to the scene of one of his most famous fights during a memorial.

Lewis’s body, in a horse-drawn hearse, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday.

It was the same bridge where in 1965 he was beaten for marching across to demand voting rights for African Americans.

The march became known as Bloody Sunday and was a significant moment in the struggle for civil rights.

Other major moments on the road to civil rights legislation were Rosa Park’s bus sit-in in Montgomery, also in Alabama, and Martin Luther King’s "I have a dream" speech in Washington.

Lewis went on to spend a lifetime fighting for change. He also became a congressman representing Atlanta, King’s home town in Georgia.

On Sunday, a crowd of mourners gathered at the landmark Selma bridge to see their hero for the last time.

As the wagon approached the bridge, members of the crowd shouted “Thank you, John Lewis", and “Good trouble", the phrase Lewis used to describe his tangles with white authorities during the civil rights movement.

Some sang the gospel song Woke up this Morning with my Mind Stayed on Jesus,  and later the civil rights anthem, We shall Overcome.

The  hearse retraced the route through Selma from Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, where the march began.

On the south side of the bridge, where Lewis was beaten by Alabama state troopers, family members placed roses at the spot where he suffered a bloody head injury.

This time, a military honour guard lifted Lewis’s casket from the horse-drawn wagon into a hearse, and state troopers saluted.

On Saturday, Troy University, in Lewis’s Alabama home town, held a memorial for him with social distancing measures in place.

Over the decades he had become a familiar face on the Troy campus but in 1957 he was denied admission to the university because of his race.

Lewis, 80, died from pancreatic cancer.

He will lie in state at the US Capitol next week before his private funeral on Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which King once led.