Interior Department nominates Civil Rights Movement sites for World Heritage list

Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland announced Tuesday that the National Park Service will potentially nominate 11 different sites from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement to be added to the World Heritage list.

“The U.S. sites that mark the civil rights movement are integral in helping us tell a full and complete story of American history,” Haaland said in a statement. “A nomination of these sites to the World Heritage list would further recognize the pain, redemption and healing associated with these historical sites and honor the civil rights heroes who bravely sat, marched and fought to secure equality for all Americans.”

The sites that will be nominated to the list are churches, schools, bus terminals and bridges pivotal to the Birmingham Civil Rights movement, the Freedom Riders movement, Brown v. Board of Education and Martin Luther King Jr.’s work. They include sites in Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

If added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, they would join “other cultural and natural sites of universal importance” around the world, like the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal.

The Interior Department release said the department will collaborate with partners and consult with the Federal Interagency Panel for World Heritage before submitting the nomination.

If submitted, the World Heritage Committee, which is composed of 21 nations’ representatives, will make the final decision.

There are currently 25 World Heritage sites in the U.S., including Yellowstone National Park, Independence Hall and Poverty Point.