“When we stood together on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama during our 2013 Civil Rights pilgrimage, we vowed ‘Next Year in Ireland.’ In April we will fulfill that promise,” says Liz McCloskey, President of The Faith & Politics Institute (FPI), an organization founded in 1991 to advance leadership among political leaders in order to help bridge the divides of race, party, and religion. A U.S. Congressional delegation led by civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, who often cites Dr. King as his inspiration, will join local citizens in a march across the Peace Bridge in Derry. This structure not only physically connects two sides of a once-divided city but has become a place where members of both traditions in Northern Ireland can enjoy what peace brings – the miracle of ordinary life. The Derry visit of the FPI delegation is part of a five-day trip to Ireland that also includes an Iveagh House address by Congressman Lewis in Dublin and a visit to Stormont and other sites in Belfast. For more information visit: www.FaithAndPolitics.org.
On the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama: (top row) Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Jim Crowley (D-NY); (bottom row) Michael Collins (Chief of Staff, Rep. Lewis), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Liz McCloskey (President & CEO, FPI) and Kristin Leary (Co-Founder, The Frederick Douglass-Daniel O’Connell Project).
Members of U.S. Congress to Visit Derry/Londonderry
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