By Bob Carlton
Talk show host David Letterman's new interview show debuted on the Netflix streaming service earlier today, and in the first episode, Letterman makes a visit to Selma for a walk across the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Letterman's new show, his first since "Late Night with David Letterman" ended its 33-year run in May 2015, is titled "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction."
Letterman and longtime Georgia Congressman John Lewis talked about the 1965 Bloody Sunday march, during which a then-25-year-old Lewis was beaten and had his skull fractured when he and other demonstrators tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to Montgomery.
"Barack Obama would have been here with you had he been the right age, wouldn't he?" Letterman asks Lewis as they walk across the bridge together.
"Oh, he would have been here," Lewis replies. "He would have been an unbelievable spokesperson, an unbelievable leader."
“We've only been here a few hours, but my impression of Selma in fact is entirely different than I thought it would be, you know," the Times-Journal quoted Letterman during his visit. "And beyond that, a factor that I hadn't even considered, the people have been so nice to me. I'm so unaccustomed to people being nice to me that it's just made it a delight."
“You can’t really be alive in this county or any place in the world and not know of [Selma],” Letterman said. “It’s iconic. It’s historic. Something breathtaking happened here. The level of change and the level of positive change that this place represents is remarkable.”