During the last weeks of his administration, President Obama added not one, but four new National Park Service units. As of January 16, 2017 this brings the total number of units in the National Park Service to 417. The new units recognize the triumphs and trials of human rights advocates–beginning in the Civil War years and ending in the modern Civil Rights movement.
With the four new national park units, President Obama added roughly 50,000 more acres to the NPS. It brings the total protected land and water in his administration to 553,500,000 acres. This outshines every other President, including more than Theodore Roosevelt the original champion of the Antiquities Act.
During the same week, President Obama also added six new sites to the California Coastal National Monument and expanded the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon. Those sites fall under Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction.
Today Park Chasers brings you a summary of the new national park units. Use our quick and handy guide to add sites #414-417 to your very own list of parkchasing:
#414 – Harriet Tubman National Historical Park
Location: Auburn, New York
Website: https://www.nps.gov/hart/index.htm
The Facts:
- 32 acre site. This was not designated under the Antiquities Act, but through Congressional/Department of Interior Approval.
- Includes the home of Harriet Tubman, the Tubman Home for the Aged, and the Harriet Tubman Visitor’s Center.
- Sister park to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in Maryland.
#415 – Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
Location: downtown Birmingham, Alabama
Website: https://www.nps.gov/bicr/index.htm
The Facts:
- Protects the historic Birmingham Civil Rights District and the A. G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham.
- Site was the headquarters for Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists in the 1960’s.
- Includes a $9 million partnership to restore the hotel.
- Site will tell the stories of other area landmarks: 16th Street Baptist Church, Bethel Baptist Church, the 4th Avenue Historic District, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
#416 – Freedom Riders National Monument
Location: Anniston, Alabama
Website: https://www.nps.gov/frri/index.htm
The Facts:
- Site protects the Greyhound bus station in Anniston where Civil Rights activists known as the “Freedom Riders” were attacked on May 14, 1961.
- Limited services and no visitor center at the site, although a mural and signage is already at the bus station. The National Park Service will develop a management plan in the coming year.
- The national monument also includes a historical marker roughly 6 miles outside of Anniston where the bus pulled over and the segregationists again attacked the Freedom Riders
#417 – Reconstruction Era National Monument
Location: Beaufort, South Carolina
Website: https://www.nps.gov/reer/index.htm
The Facts:
- The first unit of the National Park System focused on telling the story of Reconstruction. The “Reconstruction Era” (1861-1898) was the years immediately after the Civil War. It’s one of the most complicated and conflicted periods in American history as millions of newly freed African-Americans transformed the political and social structure of the South.
- Area includes 4 sites in Beaufort County: Darrah Hall and Brick Baptist Church, including one of the first schools for freed slaves, the Old Beaufort Firehouse, and parts of Camp Saxton in nearby Port Royal where the Emancipation Proclamation was read.
- None of the sites are open to the public, however the National Park Service has a management plan underway.
