Obama designates national monuments honoring civil rights
On Thursday, President Obama announced that in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he has designated three civil rights sites in Alabama and South Carolina as national monuments.
This designation gives culturally and historically significant sites protection. The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument will encompass the A.G. Gaston Motel, at one time the headquarters for King's 1964 civil rights campaign, and the Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston, Alabama, will include the Greyhound station where a bus with integrated Freedom Riders was attacked in the spring of 1961 and the location where the bus was firebombed minutes later. The Reconstruction Era National Monument in coastal South Carolina will include four sites in Beaufort County, a community developed by free slaves.
Obama also announced the expansion of two existing monuments — the California Coastal National Monument and the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in southwest Oregon and northern California — in order to protect biodiversity, natural and historic resources, and wildlife habitat.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Could smaller cars bring down vehicle prices?Today’s Big Question Trump seems to think so, but experts aren’t so sure
-
2025’s most notable new albumsThe Week Recommends These were some of the finest releases of the past year
-
Trump aims to take down ‘global mothership’ of climate scienceIN THE SPOTLIGHT By moving to dismantle Colorado’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, the White House says it is targeting ‘climate alarmism’
-
Jack Smith tells House of ‘proof’ of Trump’s crimesSpeed Read President Donald Trump ‘engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,’ hoarded classified documents and ‘repeatedly tried to obstruct justice’
-
House GOP revolt forces vote on ACA subsidiesSpeed Read The new health care bill would lower some costs but not extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
-
Hegseth rejects release of full boat strike footageSpeed Read There are calls to release video of the military killing two survivors of a Sept. 2 missile strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat
-
Trump vows naval blockade of most Venezuelan oilSpeed Read The announcement further escalates pressure on President Nicolás Maduro
-
Kushner drops Trump hotel project in SerbiaSpeed Read Affinity Partners pulled out of a deal to finance a Trump-branded development in Belgrade
-
Senate votes down ACA subsidies, GOP alternativeSpeed Read The Senate rejected the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits, guaranteeing a steep rise in health care costs for millions of Americans
-
Abrego García freed from jail on judge’s orderSpeed Read The wrongfully deported man has been released from an ICE detention center
-
Indiana Senate rejects Trump’s gerrymander pushSpeed Read The proposed gerrymander would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held US House seats
