Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

History

PDF

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

Theses and Dissertations

2023

Edmund Pettus Bridge

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Toward Truth And Reconciliation: Public Memory, Philosophical Pairs, And The Edmund Pettus Bridge, Allyson K. Hayden Dec 2023

Toward Truth And Reconciliation: Public Memory, Philosophical Pairs, And The Edmund Pettus Bridge, Allyson K. Hayden

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis connects the rhetoric of Bryan Stevenson which advances truth and reconciliation for racial healing in the United States to a case study of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. I examine common cultural invocations of the bridge that support the persistence of a blurry public memory that occludes visibility of its original memorial dedication to a known white supremacist and instead celebrates it as a landmark of the civil rights movement. I also analyze arguments for both changing and keeping the name of the bridge that occurred between 2015-2020, illustrating ways in which Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s philosophical …