Edmund Pettus
Confederate Army general
Died when: 86 years 21 days (1032 months)Star Sign: Cancer
Edmund Winston Pettus (July 6, 1821 – July 27, 1907) was a lawyer and politician who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1897 to 1907.
He served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.
After the war, he was politically active in the Ku Klux Klan, serving as a Grand Dragon.The Edmund Pettus Bridge across the Alabama River in Selma, built in 1940, was named after him.
According to Smithsonian, "The bridge was named for him, in part, to memorialize his history, of restraining and imprisoning African-Americans in their quest for freedom after the Civil War".
In 1965, the bridge became a landmark of the civil rights movement.
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