The Alabama Senate has approved the "Healing History Act," which attempts to address monuments in the state of Alabama.
Senate Bill 327 (SB327) by Sen Malika Sanders-Fortier (D-Selma) attempts to deal with preserving and adding monuments in the state.
The bill seeks to create the Freedom Fund Applicant Review Commission within the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The council would allocate resources for the preservation and construction of monuments across the state.
"The time for healing our history is now," the bill reads. "Monuments and memorials that date from the infancy of this state to the present, commemorating such individuals, causes, and events as the confederacy, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement and indigenous peoples, should stand together representing and uplifting diverse perspectives and significant events of Alabama history."
SB327 contains a fiscal note which would remove an estimated $700,000 from the Alabama Veterans' Assistance Fund and place it in the Freedom Fund for the allocations in the bill.
The bill would allow a change to the name of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma by adding civil rights "foot soldiers,'' making the name officially the “Edmund W. Pettus-Foot Soldiers Bridge.” However, the lettering on the bridge would remain unaltered, and there would be a separate sign honoring the foot soldiers.
The bridge is a landmark of the civil rights movement in the U.S. It played host to several civil rights marches to Montgomery, including the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march in which civil rights marchers were assaulted by police.
Pettus was a Confederate General and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Efforts to rename the bridge are not new. There have been calls for renaming the bridge in the name of the late John Lewis, who led the "Bloody Sunday" march and sustained injuries during the day's violence.
Sen. Gerald Allen (R-Tuscaloosa) spoke in favor of the bill, but he had issues with the renaming of the bridge. Allen stated that changing the name of a historical location would not be in the interest of history or those who come to visit the bridge.
Sanders-Fortier replied that she was not changing the bridge's name, simply adding to it.
"In the spirit of love … I did not try to change ... that name," Sanders-Fortier said. "I also think that, in that spirit, we can change that name."
Allen offered an amendment that would strike the language from the bill that would have added to the name of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Allen's amendment was voted down in the Senate, and the original bill passed the Senate with a vote of 23-2 with three abstentions.
The bill now goes to the Alabama House of Representatives for their consideration.
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