President Barack Obama may be nearly out of office, but he continues to add to his legacy. This week he declared five new national monuments, adding important Civil Rights landmarks to the list as well.
The New York Times reports the president used one of his final days to anoint three locations that serve to represent some very important moments in this nation's history.
While the president gave National Monument distinction to five locations this week, three are of particular import: The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, Birmingham, Alabama; The Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston, Alabama; and The Reconstruction Monument, which the report maintains will feature in various parts of Beaufort, South Carolina.
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According to The Washington Post and The Verge, Obama also added 6,230 acres to the California Coastal National Monument as well as 47,000 acres of land to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which takes up space in both California as well as Oregon.
As noted, this makes Obama historically prolific in regards to national parks as the number of national monuments he has either created or extended now rests at 34 - a presidential best.
The Washington Post quotes the outgoing president who explains this move, one made possible by the Antiquities Act, allows the nation to, "preserve critical chapters of our country's history."
More than dubbing these locations as nationally important, Obama hopes to illustrate their historical significance as regions that serve as bookmarks to the tome that is our unfolding history.
The report quotes Obama who states he wants to, "ensure that our national parks, monuments and public lands are fully reflective of our nation's diverse history and culture."
In this regard, three wide-ranging areas are now considered national monuments.
The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument will immortalize a solemn and tragic moment when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed back in 1963, taking the lives of four girls. The monument also includes the A.G. Gaston Motel, which was a meeting spot for civil rights leaders.
Both places served as major reasons for the subsequent 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Freedom Riders National Monument in Anniston will continue to honor those who chose to fight segregation on public transportation and were attacked because of it.
The Reconstruction Monument represents those areas wherein the nation's emancipated slaves began to create an American society of their own, immediately following the dark days of slavery.
Northwestern University history professor Kate Masur tells the Washington Post: "The Reconstruction era was the nation's first effort to grapple with slavery's lasting impact, when millions of former slaves began forging lives in freedom, and when the nation remade the Constitution to better protect citizenship and individual rights."
Just days from leaving office, Obama has managed to create a beautiful patchwork of historically significant locations that will continue to give the nation's citizens a chance to reflect on our past as we attempt to build a better future.
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