Establishment of the Freedom Riders National Monument, 6159-6163 [2017-01349]

Agencies

• Executive Office of the President

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 18, 2017)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 6159-6163]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-01349]




                        Presidential Documents 



Federal Register / Vol. 82, No. 11 / Wednesday, January 18, 2017 / 
Presidential Documents

[[Page 6159]]


                Proclamation 9566 of January 12, 2017

                
Establishment of the Freedom Riders National 
                Monument

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                An interracial group of ``Freedom Riders'' set out in 
                May 1961 on a journey from Washington, DC, to New 
                Orleans through the Deep South. In organizing the 1961 
                Freedom Rides, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) 
                was building upon earlier efforts of other civil rights 
                organizations, including the 1947 ``Journey of 
                Reconciliation,'' an integrated bus ride through the 
                segregated Upper South. The purpose of the 1961 Freedom 
                Rides was to test if bus station facilities in the Deep 
                South were complying with U.S. Supreme Court decisions. 
                Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) had 
                reversed the infamous ``separate but equal'' doctrine 
                in public education, and Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and 
                Boynton v. Virginia (1960) had struck down Virginia 
                laws compelling segregation in interstate travel.

                These rulings were the result of successful litigation 
                brought by the National Association for the Advancement 
                of Colored People, which laid the groundwork for direct 
                action campaigns by civil rights organizations like 
                CORE, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and 
                the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 
                These organizations had gathered strength, and by the 
                1950s had launched mass movements that demonstrated the 
                power of nonviolent protest. At the same time, reaction 
                to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education had 
                heightened racial tensions in the country, especially 
                in the Deep South. White Citizens' Councils, made up of 
                politicians, businessmen, and civic leaders committed 
                to resisting integration, formed throughout the South. 
                In 1956, over 100 members of Congress signed the 
                ``Southern Manifesto,'' which criticized the Brown 
                decision and called for resistance to its 
                implementation. This campaign of massive resistance 
                launched by white segregationists reinforced their 
                determination to assure continued separation of the 
                races in public spaces.

                Against this background, on May 4, 1961, in Washington, 
                DC, eleven Freedom Riders split into two groups and 
                boarded two buses, a Greyhound bus and a Trailways bus, 
                bound for New Orleans. The Greyhound bus carrying the 
                first of these groups left Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, 
                May 14, and pulled into a Greyhound bus station in 
                Anniston, Alabama later that day. There, a 
                segregationist mob, including members of the Ku Klux 
                Klan, violently attacked the Freedom Riders. The 
                attackers threw rocks at the bus, broke windows, and 
                slashed tires. Belatedly, police officers arrived and 
                cleared a path, allowing the bus to depart with a long 
                line of vehicles in pursuit. Two cars pulled ahead of 
                the bus and forced the bus to slow to a crawl. Six 
                miles outside of town, the bus's slashed tires gave out 
                and the driver stopped on the shoulder of Highway 202. 
                There, with the Freedom Riders onboard, one member of 
                the mob threw a flaming bundle of rags through one of 
                the windows that caused an explosion seconds later. The 
                Freedom Riders struggled to escape as members of the 
                mob attempted to trap them inside the burning bus. When 
                they finally broke free, they received little aid for 
                their injuries. Later that day, deacons dispatched by 
                Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth of Birmingham's Bethel 
                Baptist Church rescued the Freedom Riders from the 
                hostile mob at Anniston Hospital and drove them to 
                Birmingham for shelter at the church. A freelance 
                photojournalist captured the horrific scene of the 
                attack in photographs,

[[Page 6160]]

                which appeared on the front pages of newspapers across 
                America the next day. The brutal portrayal of 
                segregation in the South shocked many Americans and 
                forced the issue of racial segregation in interstate 
                travel to the forefront of the American conscience.

                When the Trailways bus, which had departed Atlanta an 
                hour after the Greyhound bus, arrived in Anniston, the 
                Trailways station was mostly quiet. A group of Klansmen 
                boarded the bus and forcibly segregated the Freedom 
                Riders. With all aboard, the bus left on its two-hour 
                trip to Birmingham during which the Klansmen continued 
                to intimidate and harass the Freedom Riders. When the 
                Trailways bus arrived in Birmingham, a mob of white men 
                and women attacked the Freedom Riders, reporters, and 
                bystanders with fists, iron pipes, baseball bats, and 
                other weapons, while the police department under the 
                charge of Commissioner of Public Safety T. Eugene 
                ``Bull'' Connor was nowhere to be seen. After fifteen 
                minutes of violence, the mob retreated and the police 
                appeared.

                Leaders of the Nashville Student Movement, including 
                members of SNCC, firmly believed that they could not 
                let violence prevail over nonviolence. They organized 
                an interracial group of volunteers to travel to 
                Birmingham and resume the Freedom Rides. Under police 
                protection negotiated with help from the Kennedy 
                Administration, on May 20, these SNCC Freedom Riders 
                departed Birmingham en route to Montgomery, Alabama, 
                where an angry white mob viciously attacked them. The 
                next night, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--who had not 
                been involved in the planning of the Freedom Rides--
                joined Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and Reverend 
                Shuttlesworth at a mass meeting in Abernathy's First 
                Baptist Church in Montgomery. A white mob gathered 
                outside the church, attacked African American 
                onlookers, and held hostage the civil rights leaders 
                and approximately 1,500 attendees inside the church. 
                King remained in telephone communication with Attorney 
                General Robert F. Kennedy while U.S. marshals attempted 
                to repel the siege. Finally, Governor John Patterson 
                was forced to declare martial law and send in the 
                National Guard.

                Media coverage of the Freedom Rides inspired many 
                people to take action and join the effort to end racial 
                inequality. Over the summer of 1961, the number of 
                Freedom Riders grew to over 400, many of whom were 
                arrested and jailed for their activism. The Freedom 
                Rides of 1961 focused national attention on Southern 
                segregationists' disregard for U.S. Supreme Court 
                rulings and the violence that they used to enforce 
                unconstitutional State and local segregation laws and 
                practices. The Freedom Rides forced the Federal 
                Government to take steps to ban segregation in 
                interstate bus travel. On May 29, 1961, Attorney 
                General Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce 
                Commission (ICC) to issue regulations banning 
                segregation, and the ICC subsequently decreed that by 
                November 1, 1961, bus carriers and terminals serving 
                interstate travel had to be integrated.

                As described above, the sites of these events contain 
                objects of historic interest from a critical period of 
                American history.

                WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code 
                (known as the ``Antiquities Act''), authorizes the 
                President, in his discretion, to declare by public 
                proclamation historic landmarks, historic and 
                prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic 
                or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands 
                owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be 
                national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof 
                parcels of land, the limits of which shall be confined 
                to the smallest area compatible with the proper care 
                and management of the objects to be protected;

                WHEREAS, the City of Anniston has donated to The 
                Conservation Fund fee title to the former Greyhound bus 
                station building in downtown Anniston, Alabama, 
                approximately 0.17 acres of land;

                WHEREAS, Calhoun County has donated to The Conservation 
                Fund fee title to the site of the bus burning outside 
                Anniston, Alabama, approximately 5.79 acres of land;

[[Page 6161]]

                WHEREAS, The Conservation Fund has relinquished and 
                conveyed all of these lands to the United States of 
                America;

                WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and 
                protect the historic objects associated with the former 
                Greyhound bus station in Anniston, Alabama, and the 
                site of the bus burning outside Anniston in Calhoun 
                County, Alabama;

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the 
                United States of America, by the authority vested in me 
                by section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, 
                hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are 
                situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or 
                controlled by the Federal Government to be the Freedom 
                Riders National Monument (monument) and, for the 
                purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as a part 
                thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or 
                controlled by the Federal Government within the 
                boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is 
                attached to and forms a part of this proclamation. The 
                reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass 
                approximately 5.96 acres. The boundaries described on 
                the accompanying map are confined to the smallest area 
                compatible with the proper care and management of the 
                objects to be protected.

                All Federal lands and interests in lands within the 
                boundaries described on the accompanying map are hereby 
                appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, 
                location, selection, sale, or other disposition under 
                the public land laws, from location, entry, and patent 
                under the mining laws, and from disposition under all 
                laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.

                The establishment of the monument is subject to valid 
                existing rights. If the Federal Government acquires any 
                lands or interests in lands not owned or controlled by 
                the Federal Government within the boundaries described 
                on the accompanying map, such lands and interests in 
                lands shall be reserved as a part of the monument, and 
                objects identified above that are situated upon those 
                lands and interests in lands shall be part of the 
                monument, upon acquisition of ownership or control by 
                the Federal Government.

                The Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall manage 
                the monument through the National Park Service, 
                pursuant to applicable legal authorities, consistent 
                with the purposes and provisions of this proclamation. 
                The Secretary shall use available authorities, as 
                appropriate, to enter into agreements with others to 
                address common interests and promote management needs 
                and efficiencies.

                The Secretary shall prepare a management plan, with 
                full public involvement, within 3 years of the date of 
                this proclamation. The management plan shall ensure 
                that the monument fulfills the following purposes for 
                the benefit of present and future generations: (1) to 
                preserve and protect the objects of historic interest 
                associated with the monument, and (2) to interpret the 
                objects, resources, and values related to the civil 
                rights movement. The management plan shall, among other 
                things, set forth the desired relationship of the 
                monument to other related resources, programs, and 
                organizations, both within and outside the National 
                Park System.

                Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke 
                any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; 
                however, the monument shall be the dominant 
                reservation.

                Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not 
                to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature 
                of this monument and not to locate or settle upon any 
                of the lands thereof.

[[Page 6162]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                twelfth day of January, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the 
                United States of America the two hundred and forty-
                first.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

Billing code 3297-F2-P



[[Page 6163]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD18JA17.053


[FR Doc. 2017-01349
Filed 1-17-17; 11:15 a.m.]
Billing code 4310-10-C