Bridge lights will be a ‘gamechanger’ for downtown, but organizers are hesitant to give completion date 

The lighting of the Edmund Pettus Bridge will happen. Just don’t try to hold Mike Lewis to a date.   

“I’m hesitant to put out dates,” said Lewis, chairman of Lighting Selma, the organization created to light the bridge. “It’s taken longer than anticipated. I hate to keep saying, ‘Not yet. Not yet.’”   

Lewis declined to give a completion date because so much of the process is beyond the control of Lighting Selma. But he acknowledged that everyone involved in the project is aware that March 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and everyone would like to see the bridge in its lighted glory for that event.   

The application to place lights on the bridge is almost ready to be submitted to the Alabama Department of Transportation. It may take months for ALDOT to give the group permission to place LED lights on the iconic bridge, but Lewis said he hopes the process will go smoothly because Lighting Selma, the lighting designers and ALDOT have been communicating for months.   

“We’re not going in blind to make this application,” Lewis said. “There’s been a lot of hard work and conversation.”  

After the application is approved, Lighting Selma will hire a contractor. The lights have already been designed, but Lewis said they won’t be built until the application is approved and the contract is signed. Then comes installation.   

There’s a lot to consider when lighting a bridge that’s a national historic landmark. Visitors and government officials want the structural and historic integrity of the bridge respected. And then there are the birds.   

Cliff Swallows build nests of mud on the Edmund Pettus Bridge before they fly south for the summer. You can knock their nests down when they leave because they rebuild every year, but Lewis said it takes permission from conservation officials to disturb a nest during nesting season.   

The lighting scheme was designed by HLB of New York, one of the nation’s top lighting designers. HLB and Parsons, a consulting firm that helps organizations navigate government projects, have donated their time to the bridge lighting project.   

“The untold story of this project is the level of expertise and wisdom and experience that went into the planning of this thing,” Lewis said. “We have the best people working on this. Ph.D.s, engineers. The guy who designed the lighting for the Lincoln Memorial is working on this bridge.”  

Lewis said the bridge lighting probably wouldn’t be possible if all these experts were paid for their time.   

Other bridges around the country have had lights affixed to them, including the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee and the Viet Nam Memorial Bridge in Nashville. But the Edmund Pettus Bridge is a National Historic Landmark, and it may become a UNESCO site. Because the Pettus Bridge “is perhaps the most famous bridge in the world,” Lewis said the lights must be as unobtrusive as possible.  

“When people walk across the Edmund Bridge, they want the bridge to look like it did in March of 1965,” Lewis said. “They don’t want to see lights and cables. We don’t want the light fixtures to take away from the experience of walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.”   

But at night, the lights are very much meant to be noticed.   

“When you drive down Broad Street toward the bridge at night, it’s just darkness downtown,” Lewis said. Lighting the bridge will be a beautiful sight, he said, and it will bring restaurants and nightlife to that part of town.   

The lighting of the bridge will go hand in hand with the $10 million renovation of the Selma Interpretive Center, which began in November.   

“This will be a gamechanger for business downtown,” Lewis said.