U.S. Representative Terri Sewell

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama congresswoman says it's time to end a state holiday celebrating the president of the Confederacy. 

Rep. Terri Sewell's comments came Monday on the state holiday honoring Jefferson Davis. And they come amid protests in Alabama and elsewhere over the death of an African American man at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

The lone Democrat and black person in Alabama's congressional delegation says she is skipping the inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump.  

Representative Terri Sewell of Selma tweeted Wednesday that she can't accept the disrespect shown to Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights veteran who grew up in Alabama.

Trump criticized Lewis after the congressman questioned the legitimacy of the election and said he isn't attending the inaugural. Dozens of other congressional Democrats have since said they won't go, either.

The Alabama Democratic Party has recommended six attorneys to President Barack Obama to fill a vacancy on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Party Chairman Nancy Worley told the Montgomery Advertiser  that the party recommended Birmingham lawyer Tamara Harris Johnson, former state Rep. Jeff McLaughlin of Guntersville, Birmingham lawyer Ben Morris, Dallas County Circuit Judge Collins Pettaway, federal prosecutor Susan Redmond of Montgomery, and Montgomery lawyer Mark Sabel.

Nearly 50 years ago, white supremacists planted a bomb in a Birmingham, Ala., church that killed four young girls preparing to worship. It was an act of terror that shocked the country and propelled the Congress to pass that historic 1964 Civil Rights Act. Lawmakers now want to honor those victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow.

Birmingham has long claimed to have the nation's oldest celebration of Veterans Day.

Now, the U.S. Senate agrees.

The Senate has passed a resolution stating that Birmingham is home to the nation's first and longest-running observance of Veterans Day.

The resolution comes nine years after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing Emporia, Kan., as the "founding city" of the holiday.

(Information in the following story is from: The Birmingham News, http://www.al.com/birminghamnews )

U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell will soon get an update on environmental contamination in a North Birmingham neighborhood.

Sewell plans a meeting Monday with officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is conducting testing in the area.