President, Barack Obama designates Baptist church as a national monument

HYPERALLERGIC
By Allison Meier
Stained glass window "Alabama Window" by artist John Petts in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, funded by the people of Wales as an in memoriam after the 1963 bombing (Spring 1963)
As he approached his last week as the US President, Barack Obama designated three national monuments that represent post-Civil War Reconstruction and Civil Rights heritage. Announced [last Friday], just ahead of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the new monuments include 19th-century architecture in Beaufort County, South Carolina; pivotal Civil Rights movement locales in Birmingham, Alabama; and places associated with the 1961 attack on the Freedom Riders in Anniston, Alabama. National monuments can be designated by the president through the Antiquities Act of 1906. [link]
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama (seen in 2007) (photo by Social_Stratification/Flickr)