BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) - The National Park Service is dedicating its new Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.
The agency is holding a ceremony Saturday afternoon at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to mark the event. Representatives from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the city will participate.
Former President Barack Obama established the monument in one of his final acts in office. It’s meant to highlight civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham in 1963 held against legalized segregation.
The monument incorporates about four blocks of the city’s downtown. It includes the old A.G. Gaston Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders planned the Birmingham campaign.
Obama also established a national monument in Anniston to tell the story of Freedom Riders who were attacked in the city in 1961.
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