Attempt by the DOGE-linked General Services Administration to Sell the Alabama Freedom Riders Museum is Stopped

 

The attempt by officials of the General Services Administration (GSA) - which manages federal property - to sell the Freedom Rides Museum (210 South Court Street, Montgomery, Alabama 36104, 1-334-414-8647) was foiled by two outraged Alabama representatives working with a Republican Alabama senator. When U.S. Reps. Terri A. Sewell (D-AL7) and Shomari Figures (D-AL2) saw the GSA list, both immediately demanded that the station be spared. The site is “an essential historical landmark that not only honors the legacy of the Freedom Riders but also educates the public about our nation’s struggle for equality and justice.” The GSA officials included the building, which the Museum leases from the federal government, on a list of hundreds they planned to sell because they were “not core to government operations.”

Days later, ahead of a March 9th commemoration in nearby Selma marking the 60th anniversary of the protest known as Bloody Sunday, the lawmakers and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY8) blasted the Trump administration for trying to sell the site and vowed to protect it and the rest of the over-130 stops on the U.S. Civil Rights Trail that connects 15 states. The Trail is a collection of churches, courthouses, schools, museums, and other landmarks, primarily in the Southern states, where activists challenged segregation in the 1950s and 1960s to advance social justice.

Fortunately, Alabama U.S. Senator Katie Boyd Britt, an ally of President Donald Trump who had also attended the Selma commemoration, intervened and announced on April 9th that the Museum was no longer listed for closure. 

The Museum, which draws visitors from across the country, is now recognized as an official destination on the Trail. It also is on the National Register of Historic Places, and has been rated as the 28th most popular museums in Alabama. This rehabilitated bus station has been restored to how it looked in 1961 and is the site of the 1961 attack on Freedom Riders when they arrived at the station. Recently, administration officials have edited National Park Service websites to minimize events and individuals opposing slavery and Black Americans’ struggle for civil rights. The military removed mention of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and Navajo code talkers from its websites and training materials. Public outcry prompted reversals.

Alabama’s Democrats introduced legislation March 12th to protect civil rights landmarks on the National Register. The legislation forbids the sale of federally owned landmarks on register. If the federal government does want to sell such a property, Congressional approval would be required.

Read the March 13, 2025 Alabama Daily News article.

Read the March 11, 2025 AL.com article.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Passes

FRED SHUTTLESWORTH, CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER, PASSES
Shuttlesworth, one of the leaders of the civil rights movement, has passed at 89. Shuttlesworth is one of the figures in the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. King once called Shuttlesworth "the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South." Shuttlesworth organized two weeks of daily demonstrations by black children, students, clergymen, and others against segregated Alabama. After much struggle, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed, after the historic Alabama marches that year from Selma to Montgomery, which Mr. Shuttlesworth also helped organize. Read the October 5, 2011 New York Times article.