President Barack Obama on Thursday designated three new national monuments honoring civil rights history in an effort to “ensure that more of country’s history will be preserved and celebrated.”The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument will protect important landmarks from the civil rights movement, including the A.G. Gaston Motel, an “epicenter of Birmingham’s civil rights protests and demonstrations.” It also safeguards the 16th Street Baptist Church, which the Ku Klux Klan bombed in 1963 during the height of desegregation. The Freedom Riders National Monument will honor the 1961 rides through the Deep South with the protection of a Greyhound station in Anniston, Alabama, where a bus was firebombed. “These monuments preserve the vibrant history of the Reconstruction Era and its role in redefining freedom,” the president said in a statement. Just last month, he set aside 1.35 million acres of federal land, including areas important to Native American communities, in Utah and Nevada. Thursday’s announcement also included the expansion of the California Coastal National Monument.

Source: Huffington Post January 13, 2017 11:20 UTC