WASHINGTON – The Montgomery bus station, home to the Freedom Rides Museum, is officially not for sale after it appeared on a now deleted list of government properties slated for sale, prompting backlash.
U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, whose district includes Montgomery, said the General Services Administration informed him that it would not sell the bus station. Figures said he was grateful for the decision, but he said the possibility of its sale “never should have happened.”
“We should not have to continue to pressure this administration to protect civil rights history, as we were forced to do when they pulled the Tuskegee Airmen from training curriculum and scholarships for students at historically Black land-grant institutions,” Figures said in a statement Wednesday.
Figures, along with Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, sent a letter to the agency last week urging the removal of the property from a GSA list of federally owned properties slated for sale. That list, which included hundreds of properties, has since been deleted and replaced with a page that says the list is “coming soon.” The Department of Government Efficiency continues to make inroads on shrinking the federal government.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt also reconfirmed Wednesday that the museum will not be sold after having “very direct conversations” with the Trump administration.
“(I) certainly believe and know that President Trump values that, and that will not be on the list,” Britt told Alabama Daily News.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined Figures and Sewell during the commemoration of Bloody Sunday last weekend to also call for the removal.
Alabama’s Democrats introduced legislation Wednesday to protect civil rights landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places. The legislation prohibits the sale of federally owned landmarks on register. If the federal government does want to sell such a property, Congressional approval would be required.
Sewell said civil rights landmarks are part of American history and must be preserved.
“Rest assured, Congressman Figures and I will not sit by and let Donald Trump, Elon Musk, or anyone else sell off historic landmarks like the Freedom Rides Museum to the highest bidder,” Sewell said in a statement. “Our civil rights history is not for sale.”