Monuments to America’s Past
How presidents have used the Antiquities Act to protect and shape history
For over a century, U.S. presidents have used the Antiquities Act to protect America’s treasures. The act gives presidents the ability to preserve natural landscapes and historic structures for the education and enjoyment of the public—as well as future generations—through the creation of national monuments. Many monuments are later redesignated by Congress as national historical parks, national historic sites, and national parks.
Presidents have used the Antiquities Act over 150 times since it was passed by Congress in 1906. From protecting the Grand Canyon in Arizona—where countless rock layers record geologic time—to designating the Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama—where a mob attacked civil rights activists who demanded an end to racial segregation—these places tell the story of America.
Protecting Manmade and Natural Wonders
The Antiquities Act was passed in response to rampant looting of antiquities from ancestral Native American structures and burial grounds in the Southwest, hence its name. But President Teddy Roosevelt, who signed the act into law, also recognized that large landscapes needed protection given the development pressures facing the southwest, like dams and mines.
Roosevelt used the act four times in 1906, the year of its passage, to create monuments containing substantial archaeological resources and natural wonders. He used it again in 1907 to create Chaco Canyon National Monument (now a national historical park), protecting the stunning greathouses of the ancient Puebloans.
In 1908, Roosevelt used the act to protect the Grand Canyon as a national monument (now a national park), setting a precedent for the creation of landscape-scale monuments using the Antiquities Act. Presidents in the mid-to-late 20th century built on this legacy, designating Denali National Monument and Grand Teton National Monument, iconic areas that are inarguably worthy of protection and have since been redesignated by Congress as national parks.
During the 20th century, the Antiquities Act was also used to designate sites with historical significance, such as the Statue of Liberty National Monument, designated by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and Thomas Edison National Historic Park, designated by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. This broad use of the Antiquities Act opened the door to another shift in the 21st century, when presidents began to use the act to recognize sites with special cultural significance. Most recently, President Biden used the Antiquities Act on October 12, 2022 to create Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument to honor veterans who trained at Camp Hale for World War II.
Chaco Canyon National Historical Park
Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, located in northwestern New Mexico, contains the remains of one of the largest and most architecturally advanced pre-Columbian societies in North America. Chaco Canyon was built by the Ancestral Puebloans, whose descendants live on today as the Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest.
Grand Canyon National Park
Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona on the ancestral homeland of 11 Native American Tribes, contains the Grand Canyon, a mile-deep gorge of the Colorado River and one of the most spectacular examples of erosion anywhere in the world. The park spans over a million acres, contains almost 300 miles of the Colorado River, and receives millions of visitors every year.
Denali National Park and Preserve
Denali National Park and Preserve, located in interior Alaska, is six million acres of wild land, bisected by one ribbon of road. Travelers along it see the relatively low-elevation taiga forest give way to high alpine tundra and snowy mountains, culminating in North America's tallest peak, the 20,310-foot Denali. Wild animals large and small roam unfenced lands, living as they have for ages, undisturbed by modern development.
Statue of Liberty National Monument
“The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World,” located on a small island in New York harbor, was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States and is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The idea of a monument presented by the French people to the United States was first proposed by Édouard René de Laboulaye, president of the French Anti-Slavery Society and a prominent and important political thinker of his time.
Grand Teton National Park
Grand Teton National Park, located in northwestern Wyoming, contains the major peaks of the 40-mile-long Teton Range. The Tetons rise thousands of feet above a landscape containing extraordinary wildlife, pristine lakes, and alpine terrain. The Snake River winds through the national park, which encompasses over 300,000 acres.
Thomas Edison National Historical Park
Thomas Edison National Historical Park, located in eastern New Jersey, contains Edison’s home, the Glenmont Estate, and laboratory, where the motion picture camera, vastly improved phonographs, sound recordings, silent and sound movies, and the nickel-iron alkaline electric storage battery were invented. The laboratory complex includes a three-story building, which held a research library, machine shops for building models, space for experiments and various research projects, and Edison's office. Across from the main building were separate labs for chemistry, physics, and metallurgy.
Telling the Story of America
In 2006, President George W. Bush used the act to establish African Burial Ground National Monument, where over 400 free and enslaved Africans were buried in New York City. As an archaeological site, African Burial Ground clearly fit the definition for use of the Antiquities Act, but it also established a precedent for using the act to protect places that tell the history of oppressed peoples in the United States. The cultural importance of recognizing African Burial Ground was stressed heavily in the designation announcement by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, who said “By creating this monument, we recognize that, as a nation, we were once blind and separated by the shame of slavery.’
President Barack Obama used the Antiquities Act to great effect, protecting more cultural sites in addition to natural landscapes. The administration chose sites that exemplify the complete and honest history of America, including discrimination against oppressed identities and their subsequent fight for equal rights. As a critical part of the process, the Obama administration listened closely to local communities and stakeholders before making designations and established an important process for focusing on designations with strong local community support.
“From the treasured landscapes of northern New Mexico and Washington, to the historic sites in Delaware, to the sites that show our nation’s path from Civil War to civil rights, these monuments help tell the rich and complex story of our nation’s history and natural beauty,” said Obama Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
African Burial Ground National Monument
In 1991, excavation of a piece of land in lower Manhattan revealed the remains of 421 freed and enslaved Africans who were buried with over 500 artifacts. It is considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, and it was instrumental in understanding the history of Africans in New York City during the 17th-18th centuries. During that period, Africans were prohibited from being buried in church cemeteries in New York, and so the African community established their own separate place to bury and mourn their dead.
César E. Chávez National Monument
The first cultural monument designated by President Obama, César E. Chávez National Monument honors Latino American history by showcasing the home and workplace of César Chávez, who led the farm workers movement in the 1970s. The result of this movement was the passage of California's Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, the first law in the U.S. that allowed farm workers to unionize.
Honouliuli National Historic Site
Located on Oahu in Hawaii, Honouliuli was the site of one of many prisons used for wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Like other Japanese prisons, most of the prisoners were American citizens unjustly suspected of disloyalty following the attacks on Pearl Harbor. None of the nearly 2,000 people of Japanese descent from Hawaii who were held there were found guilty of any crimes against the United States.
Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument
In Washington D.C., this historic building is the place where suffragette Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party fought for women’s rights for more than 90 years. President Obama designated it as a national monument by way of the Antiquities Act on Equal Pay Day in 2016, the day dedicated to bringing awareness to the wage gap between men and women.
Stonewall National Monument
The Stonewall Inn was the site of a milestone in the fight for LGBTQ civil rights and provided momentum for the movement that eventually led to the legalization of gay marriage. On June 28, 1969, an uprising began during a routine police raid on the “private” gay bar. The fight at the bar morphed into a multi-day protest and sparked a surge of activism for LGBTQ rights. The Stonewall Inn still operates as a bar today, and the structure has come to be a symbol of resistance and solidarity for the LGBTQ community, which has fought for and won city, state, and federal recognition of the site.
Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
In recognition of the violent and bloody history of the civil rights movement, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument was designated via the Antiquities Act in 2017. It recognizes four city blocks that were heavily associated with Martin Luther King Jr. and were pivotal for the civil rights movement in the 1960s. These blocks are the area where a violent confrontation between police and protesters, many of whom were children, played out in May 1963. The historical sites included within the monument are:
Freedom Riders National Monument
In 1961, an interracial group of “Freedom Riders” challenged discriminatory policies of segregation in bus stations by taking an integrated bus journey throughout the South. The purpose was to test if bus stations were complying with recent anti-segregation U.S. Supreme Court decisions including Brown v. Board of Education. The Freedom Riders persisted with their journey despite meeting racial violence throughout the trip including an attack by the KKK. The Freedom Riders brought widespread attention to the fight against segregation and inspired hundreds to join them to work towards integration.
President Biden's Turn to Make History
The creation of culturally-significant national monuments and historic sites using the Antiquities Act is now a well-established tradition, one that the Biden administration has ample opportunity to continue.
President Joe Biden has the opportunity to build on the legacy of George W. Bush and Barack Obama by protecting other sites that are important to America’s history. From Oklahoma to California, communities are calling on President Biden to protect and acknowledge important cultural and historical sites, such as Black Wall Street in Tulsa—where a thriving Black community was destroyed overnight by a white mob—and Friendship Park in San Diego—where family and friends separated by the U.S.-Mexico border have come to meet for decades.
Here are four proposed monuments the President Biden could designate using the Antiquities Act.
Cahokia Mounds: Proposed National Historical Park
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site—located in southern Illinois just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri—contains the remains of one of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilizations in the modern day United States. The site once encompassed 120 earthen mounds , now about 70, that composed an Indigenous city known today as Cahokia.
Cahokia was the biggest and most influential city built by the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the Midwest and Southeast. Greater Cahokia was the largest city in North America for hundreds of years, with a population over 10,000 at its peak. The Mississippians established numerous satellite villages around Cahokia as well as a complex trading system that stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
Cahokia is one of 24 UNESCO World Heritage Sites within the United States and is the only such site in the Midwest. While Cahokia Mounds is protected by the state of Illinois, many Mississipian mounds lie outside the 2,200-acre state historic site. These mounds were used as foundations for buildings, as well as for burials and help tell the story of the Mississipians’ vast empire. Cahokia's development coincided with the development of the Chaco Canyon society in New Mexico, which was protected by an Antiquities Act designation in 1907 .
Since 2012, the southern Illinois nonprofit Heartlands Conservancy has led efforts to extend and strengthen protections for Cahokia Mounds by having it designated as a national historical park or national monument, which would encompass the state historic site as well as five satellite sites within 30 to 40 miles of it.
“It is such a sacred place, when you go there you feel the power of the land,” said Laura Lyon, Vice President of Program Strategy & Impact at Heartlands Conservancy. “It’s so welcoming and so emboldening to look across the landscape and see the spatial relationships between the mounds. It’s planetary. It's astronomical.”
Legislation for the Cahokia Mounds Mississippian Culture National Historical Park Act was introduced in 2019 and 2021 in the U.S. House and Senate to elevate the Cahokia Mounds Mississippian Culture to a national historical park. The designation would help tell a more complete story of Mississipian culture by creating a partnership park with the National Park Service, which would co-manage the park in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The two U.S. senators from Illinois, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, are calling on President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to make this a reality. These efforts have the support of over ten Native American tribes with connections to the Mississipians, including the Absentee Shawnee Tribe, Cherokee Nation, Chickasaw Nation, Eastern Shawnee Tribe, Loyal Shawnee Culture, Miami Tribe, Osage Nation/Tribe, Ottawa Tribe, Peoria Tribe, Ponca Tribe, and Quapaw Tribe.
Black Wall Street: Proposed National Monument
In 1921, Greenwood was a modern and thriving neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Often referred to as “Black Wall Street,” its residents were wealthy and well-educated, and shops, restaurants, cafes, and movie theaters lined the main street . Black Wall Street was the embodiment of Black excellence in the Jim Crow-era, proving Black people could be just as successful and prosperous as their white counterparts.
But it was completely destroyed in a single day on May 30, 1921 when a white mob stormed Greenwood, setting fire to buildings and killing hundreds of residents in what has come to be known as the Tulsa Race Massacre . Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in ruins and at least 36 people were reported dead . Historians now believe as many as 100 to 300 people may have died in the unprovoked attack. A 2001 state commission report shows that the financial toll of the attack amounted to $1.8 million in property loss, roughly equivalent to $27 million today.
Despite recent efforts to restore and rebuild Black Wall Street, North Tulsa, where Greenwood was located, is still struggling to overcome the violence and destruction perpetuated on the Black community there a century ago. The neighborhood still lacks basic services like grocery stores, resulting in massive health disparities between Black northside residents and their white counterparts across the tracks. That’s a major reason why the life expectancy of a Black child in the neighborhood where Greenwood once stood is over 10 years less than that of a white child living in Tulsa’s southside.
Now, Black Tulsans are asking President Biden to acknowledge the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre —as well as the prosperity it destroyed— by using the Antiquities Act to designate Black Wall Street a national monument . A national monument designation would help shine a light on this history after the story of the massacre was actively hidden for over a century.
“Each of us should learn the hard lessons of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the continued harm shouldered by the survivors, the descendants, and the neighborhood of Greenwood,” said Dr. Tiffany Crutcher , whose grandmother survived the attack. “The President must begin work to designate Black Wall Street a national monument so we can always remember the history of this place and educate generations to come."
Springfield Race Riot: Proposed National Monument
In 1908 in Springfield, Illinois, a white mob attacked and burned down black neighborhoods in Springfield in response to a false rape charge against two Black men. The violence lasted for 48 hours, ending with two black community members being lynched. These events influenced the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to fight against racial discrimination. This horrific piece of history is a critical part of the civil rights movement and Black history and should be recognized and protected as such.
There is already widespread community support to honor the area as a national monument, and a plan for what the proposed monument would include . In 2019, Illinois Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin introduced a bill to do just this and then reintroduced the bill in 2021. The bill is also supported by Representative Rodney Davis , giving it both bipartisan and bicameral support. However, congressional gridlock is preventing the bill from making any progress, which is why advocates from the Sierra Club and the NAACP , along with Senators Duckworth and Durbin, are pressing President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to establish the Springfield Race Massacre Site as a national monument. The proposed monument is in an area that includes an archaeological site with the foundations of buildings that were burned down in the riot.
“Establishing the 1908 Springfield Race Riot National Monument would represent long-overdue progress in making sure the National Parks System properly memorializes the historic events of the African-American civil rights movement,” the senators wrote in a letter to President Biden. “The NAACP was instrumental in pushing our nation forward to form a perfect union by helping establish justice and working to secure the blessings of liberty for Black Americans.”
The role that the Springfield Race Riot played in the history of racism and civil rights in America makes it worthy of the national monument designation. It would be a step toward acknowledging the complete history of the United States, which does include violent and unjust events like the Springfield Race Riot. The site was added to the African American Civil Rights Network in 2020 after evaluation by the National Park Service deemed it worthy of recognition.
In an article for Sierra Magazine , Teresa Haley of the NAACP and Chris Hill of the Sierra Club argue for a monument designation of this site as a way to tell American history:
“The fact is that without Black history, there is no American history. Black folks have fought, bled, and died to advance to the levels we have, and while we’ve come a long way, there is still a long way to go. This proposed monument would remind Americans of this trajectory: from one of the lowest points in our history, to the creation of one of the oldest and largest civil rights organizations in this country, to the America that we witness today, and to the hopefully equitable and just America of the future.”
Friendship Park: Proposed National Monument
Located on the beach between San Diego, CA and Tijuana, Mexico, Friendship Park is bisected by the international border wall. It is also a part of Border Field State Park and the Transborder Tijuana River Delta, and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve is located nearby. It is a critical site for cultural connectivity between the U.S. and Mexico, and is the only way for some people to see their families across the border. Transborder events and rallies are common at Friendship Park, including Sunday Mass, concerts, and yoga classes.
The park was first established in 1971, and at the opening ceremony First Lady Patricia Nixon pronounced , “I hope there won't be a fence too long here.”
Unfortunately, the neighborly community-focused culture of the park is threatened by increased border security and construction on the border wall . Increased border patrol presence creates an unwelcoming and threatening environment for some Latino park visitors, while construction on the wall threatens the coastal ecosystem. The U.S. side of the park has been closed entirely to the public since February 2020.
With the park’s association with First Lady Nixon and its importance to the Latino community, it is eligible for cultural heritage protection within the National Park Service. Protecting this area as a National Historic Landmark and reopening it to public access would be a major recognition of Latino culture and community, and would honor the ties between the U.S. and Mexico.
President Biden is already off to a good start: in 2021, he restored Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which were illegally gutted by the Trump administration. And in 2022 used the Antiquities Act to protect Colorado's Camp Hale, a WWII high alpine training camp, as Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument.
President Biden should listen to the communities calling on him to acknowledge the importance of events like the Springfield Race Riot and places like Cahokia Mounds. Traditional, less comprehensive perspectives on American history are being justifiably scrutinized right now and new more inclusive narratives about what it means to be an American are forming. President Biden can have a hand in shaping this conversation as well as how we understand our shared history by elevating the stories of Black, Latino, and Indigneous Americans through the creation of these new national monuments.