By Heather Gann
The Montgomery Bus Station, which houses the historic Freedom Rides Museum, was included in a list published Tuesday by the U.S. General Services Administration of more than 400 federal buildings and properties to be sold as a result of ongoing cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The station became a historical landmark in 1961 after Freedom Riders were attacked there by white supremacists during the civil rights movement.
The administration had said it was seeking to offload other federal buildings bearing the names of civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta and Rosa Parks in Detroit, according to The Associated Press.
The list of buildings published to the GSA website was deleted less than a day later, AP reported.
Representatives for the museum told AL.com Thursday that they had not been contacted by anyone from the GSA regarding its sale.
In a letter sent to the GSA on Thursday, U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham and Shomari Figures, D-Mobile urged the agency to remove the museum from the list.
“The museum serves as an essential historical landmark that not only honors the legacy of the Freedom Riders but also educates the public about our nation’s struggle for equality and justice,” they wrote. “Given its historical and cultural significance, we strongly encourage the GSA to remove the Freedom Rides Museum from the list. It is crucial that we preserve such landmarks, which are integral to understanding our shared history.”
Earlier Thursday, Sewell said the rumored sale was an “outrageous” move by DOGE in a post to X on Thursday.
“Our civil rights history is not for sale!”
Sewell has been an outspoken opponent of recent DOGE cuts and their impact on Alabama residents.
“Elon Musk’s reckless power trip is directly threatening the livelihoods of my constituents,” she wrote in a post to X after cuts to Social Security offices impacted at least 100 federal employees across multiple states, including Alabama’s Birmingham office.
Similar to this week’s confusion regarding GSA sales, many of DOGE’s claims of terminated leases for federal buildings in the state have been difficult to verify.
Doug Howard, public affairs officer for the United States Attorney’s Office in Montgomery said, “normal operations are continuing at our usual location, and we remain fully committed to serving the Middle District of Alabama without disruption,” after DOGE claimed it had terminated the office’s lease this week.
Kenneth Stripling, district director of the Wage and Hour Division in Mobile, also said he was not aware of any lease termination and added this week that their offices remain “open and ready to serve the public.”
Congressman Robert Aderholt’s office recently told Alabama Daily News that the Jasper and Cullman Social Security offices are open and will remain open.
“The adjustments being made involve the cancellation of lease agreements covering hearing spaces, not the areas used for day-to-day operations,” Aderholt, R-Haleyville, told Alabama Daily News in a statement.
“These changes will not affect the ability of residents to access Social Security services at these locations.”
And Dustin Gautney, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mobile District also told AL.com previously that without an address, the Corps’ real estate division is unable to pinpoint what lease is referenced on the DOGE website.
Gautney later reached out to clarify that the Corps did not say DOGE didn’t terminate a lease of which it may have been the initial leasing agent.
“We just cannot confirm or deny based on the data provided,” he said.
The Corps of Engineers Mobile District manages real estate for the military all over the Gulf Coast region, Gautney said, so it’s difficult to know what the lease is related to.
Around a year ago, the Corps did terminate a lease with the U.S. General Services Administration for the second story of a federally owned building on St. Michael Street in downtown Mobile. The approximate square footage the Corps leased was 24,000 square feet.
The building was used by the federal court system until 2020, and since then has been used by several federal agencies, Gautney said.
But the lease was terminated prior to the creation of DOGE, which was created via executive order after President Donald Trump was inaugurated last month and therefore could not have been involved with the lease termination.
A recent NPR analysis found that the site overestimates DOGE’s $105 billion government spending slash, which has more than doubled since last week, by several billion dollars.
“Six other current and former federal contracting officers who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation say that the DOGE savings page is misleading the public with the data it includes — like overemphasizing the maximum possible value of contracts cancelled — as well as with what it leaves out, they say, like how much has already been budgeted and spent to fulfill the contract,” NPR’s Stephen Fowler writes.