The Latest: Members of Congress tour lynching memorial
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Latest on lawmakers' civil rights pilgrimage through Alabama (all times local):
6:25 p.m.
Dozens of members of Congress toured a memorial to lynching victims during a weekend-long civil rights pilgrimage through Alabama.
The group on Friday afternoon visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a Montgomery memorial dedicated to lynching victims and the legacy of enslaved people.
Rep. John Lewis, who was once beaten by Alabama troopers while trying to march for voting rights, somberly walked with other lawmakers through the memorial where coffin-sized brown monuments are inscribed with the names of lynching victims.
Earlier in the day the group stopped at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, where four black girls died in a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963.
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12:10 p.m.
Dozens of members of Congress are making a weekend-long civil rights pilgrimage through Alabama.
The mostly Democratic group made its first stop Friday at Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church, where four black girls died in a Ku Klux Klan bombing in 1963.
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who was once beaten by Alabama troopers while trying to march for voting rights, walked slowly up the church's stone steps.
Delegation members watched a play depicting the lives of the bombing victims and applauded a handful of civil rights veterans as they stood.
The group will also visit a new memorial to thousands of racial lynching victims in Montgomery and participate in weekend civil rights commemorations in Selma.
The annual civil rights trip is sponsored by the Faith and Politics Institute.
