Bham Now: Faith & Politics Institute Weekend

Coincidentally, the Launchpad finale coincides with the first day of Faith and Politics Institute Weekend in Selma. The annual weekend brings hundreds of lawmakers from Washington, D.C. for a weekend of discussion and reflection about the civil rights movement. The weekend culminates with the historic walk from Montgomery to Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

“The leadership and government in Selma have been great at accommodating all of us. Everyone is pulling together. The people in Selma are great! They are doing it all this weekend, and we appreciate all their hard work,” Spencer said.

Alabama Today: Doug Jones, Terri Sewell, Martha Roby join forces to lead Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage

Members of the Alabama delegation are putting their politics aside and joining forces to lead a bipartisan congressional delegation of nearly 50 members from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate on the 2019 Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

Buffalo News: Reed joins renewed effort to pass Equal Rights Amendment

In an interview Tuesday, Reed said his interest in the amendment took root in a Faith and Politics Institute pilgrimage he made last year to Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the American women's rights movement, which is in Reed's district.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, accompanied Reed on the pilgrimage. And over the several days they spent together, Maloney asked Reed if he would be the lead Republican co-sponsor on a House effort to revive the Equal Rights Amendment.

"I just said: 'I'm totally on board with this – whatever you need from me,' " Reed said.

Charleston survivor comforts congregants

Hours after sundown on a quiet evening in Squirrel Hill, Polly Sheppard recounted how three and a half years earlier on a hot night in South Carolina, a 21-year-old white supremacist gunman spared her after killing nine African Americans at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. It was immediately after Bible study when he opened fire, and with the dead and soon-to-be beside her, Sheppard retreated beneath a table as the murderer approached.

The Washington Post: That moral arc doesn’t bend toward justice all by itself

During the pilgrimage with the Faith & Politics Institute last weekend to western New York state and the landmarks of the abolition and women’s suffrage movements that were centered there, we were reminded that these dark days are neither new nor insurmountable. The scene was a panel I moderated with Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and two history professors.

Winston Salem Journal: Rep. John Lewis on the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have not gone back to that spot since. It's just been too hard, too difficult."

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., has led an annual civil rights pilgrimage to Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala., with the Faith and Politics Institute for 20 years. And every year but one since 1965, the icon told me, he has returned to the sites where he was arrested, brutally beaten and continually bore witness to death in the pursuit of equality under the law for African-Americans. But when it came to Indianapolis, where Lewis was campaigning with Bobby Kennedy on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated, Lewis resisted returning. That will change on the 50th anniversary today.

Jonathan Capehart: Rep. John Lewis on the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have not gone back to that spot since. It's just been too hard, too difficult."

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., has led an annual civil rights pilgrimage to Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala., with the Faith and Politics Institute for 20 years. And every year but one since 1965, the icon told me, he has returned to the sites where he was arrested, brutally beaten and continually bore witness to death in the pursuit of equality under the law for African-Americans. But when it came to Indianapolis, where Lewis was campaigning with Bobby Kennedy on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated, Lewis resisted returning. That will change on the 50th anniversary today.

Baltimore Sun: Fifty years later, King’s vision must remain Congress’ cause

This week, our nation marks the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Last month, we joined colleagues from both sides of the aisle on the Faith and Politics Institute’s annual Civil Rights pilgrimage to pay tribute to King and remember his legacy. Visiting Selma, Montgomery and Memphis on a journey led by our colleague, Civil Rights hero Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, reinvigorated our determination to fight for civil rights and equality in Congress. Standing in Memphis at the site of King’s murder imbued us with a sense of responsibility to carry on the work he led.

Fifty years later, King’s vision must remain Congress’ cause

This week, our nation marks the 50th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Last month, we joined colleagues from both sides of the aisle on the Faith and Politics Institute’s annual Civil Rights pilgrimage to pay tribute to King and remember his legacy. Visiting Selma, Montgomery and Memphis on a journey led by our colleague, Civil Rights hero Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, reinvigorated our determination to fight for civil rights and equality in Congress. Standing in Memphis at the site of King’s murder imbued us with a sense of responsibility to carry on the work he led.

As King Anniversary Nears, 3 Memphis Sites Key to His Legacy Draw Visitors

Within close proximity of each other in downtown Memphis sit three historic buildings — two of them houses of worship — crucial to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

All three, which are part of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, are seeing an influx of visitors as people in the city — and far beyond it — mark the 50th anniversary of the two-month strike by black sanitation workers and other events that led up to his assassination.