CITY OF SEATTLE
ORDINANCE __________________
COUNCIL BILL __________________
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AN ORDINANCE naming the pedestrian and bicycle bridge across Interstate 5, connecting N 100th St to 1st Ave NE, as the John Lewis Memorial Bridge.
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WHEREAS, John Lewis was a civil rights icon and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Georgia's 5th Congressional District for more than three decades; and
WHEREAS, John Lewis was known as "the Conscience of the U.S. Congress"; and
WHEREAS, he coined the term "good trouble" to describe his participation in protests at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee; and
WHEREAS, in 1961, he volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South; and
WHEREAS, John Lewis and other civil rights leaders led over 600 peaceful protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965 to march from Selma to Montgomery to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state; and
WHEREAS, Alabama state troopers attacked the marchers in a brutal confrontation that became known as "Bloody Sunday." News broadcasts and photographs revealing the senseless cruelty of the segregated South helped hasten the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and
WHEREAS, his legacy of non-violent advocacy has influenced modern civil rights movements such as Black Lives Matter; and
WHEREAS, the City of Seattle stands in solidarity with the Black community; and
WHEREAS, the City Council is committed to systematically uprooting racism and investing in Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities to address disparities in wealth, health, education, homeownership, and opportunity; and
WHEREAS, the North Seattle has a well-documented history of redlining and exclusionary housing covenants that prohibited non-white residents from living and acquiring property in much of the North End; and
WHEREAS, recent demographic trends show a growing BIPOC po...
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