Government Announces Three New Monuments As Presidential Proclamation
For all the talk of President-Elect Donald Trump, President Barack Obama is still in the oval office with full executive power.
President Obama has issued three Presidential Proclamations for a treble of new monuments, each commemorating the Reconstruction Era, Freedom Riders and Birmingham Civil Rights.
Welcome to the family 415-417: Birmingham Civil Rights, Freedom Riders, and Reconstruction Era National Monuments! #civilrights #civilwar pic.twitter.com/uDunQoMf1K
— National Park Service (@NatlParkService) January 13, 2017
The Reconstruction Era was the time between the Civil War until the Jim Crow racial segregation era in the 1890s. The country began to attempt to integrate recently freed slaves.
In 1961, the Freedom Riders traveled south to 'test' if bus stations in the the south would comply with recent rulings reversing segregation. They found that there was much more pushback than compliance, as Klansmen slashed their bus' tires and threw flaming rags onto the bus, attempting to trap them on board as well.
Then in 1963 is when the Birmingham Civil Rights movement begun, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Their 'nonviolent direct act' was greeted regularly with violence from white civic authorities.
Today marks a week until President Obama's last day in the office and President-Elect Trump will take over.