WSFA 12 News Montgomery, AL |Teacher to run 54-mile Civil Rights Trail

Teacher to run 54-mile Civil Rights Trail

Posted by: John Shryock - bio | email

SELMA, AL (WSFA) - A high school history teacher from Cincinnati, Ohio is putting on his running shoes for a long jog through Alabama.

Harvey Lewis, 33, will run the 54-mile route of the Civil Rights Trail from Selma to Montgomery this weekend, and he plans to do it in just one day. He'll also be the first ever person to run the entire length.

The trek starts Sunday, November 8 at the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma. Lewis chose the Veteran's Day weekend to honor vets of "internal wars," specifically those of the Civil Rights movement.

Lewis has a long history of activism, running, and education having traveled to more than fifty countries. Long runs are nothing new for him either. When he completes the mere 54-mile trek through historic Alabama he'll add it to his list of accomplishments. He's already run Gandhi's 241-mile Salt March.

His journey is set to be part of a documentary filmed by Focus Media Studios. The company will deploying cameras to Alabama to record his run and capture interviews Lewis plans with several Civil Rights leaders including Amelia Boynton Robinson. Robinson was a major organizer of the original march. At the end of his journey, Lewis plans to meet Rev. Richard Boone, an SCLC Field Director during the 1965 March.

You can follow Lewis' journey on Twitter through his account: HarveyLewisRuns.

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