Johnson: If Black lives don’t matter to Trump and Musk, Alabama’s history certainly doesn’t

This is an opinion column.

You can’t be surprised that Elon Musk doesn’t appreciate our history. Or much of anything, it seems, beyond what he sees in the mirror, his billions and what sophomoric T-shirt and cap he’ll wear to the White House.

And it’s not because he wasn’t born here. You don’t have to spend much time around the bounty of historical sites in our state — in Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma or Mobile — to know that Alabama’s role in shaping America’s painful racial history is well-known far beyond our borders.

The men, women and children who endured are well-known and appreciated. Well-known and revered.

Travelers come to Alabama to study how we did it. To absorb how a coalition comprising all hues and many faiths forced a stubborn nation to honor its own self-evident truths — that all men (and women) are created equal and endowed with rights inalienable. And rights that had to be demanded.

They come also to honor those who marched, who rode, who walked, who sat. Those who fought. Those who died.

They come to hear their stories, their voices. They come to stand where they stood. To pray where they sacrificed.

You can’t be surprised Musk, born in Pretoria, South Africa, doesn’t know that — nor seem to care until his ignorance is exposed and he can no longer DOGE it.

I have zero doubt Musk wanted to sell the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, that he flippantly allowed it into America’s yard sale. Without hesitation. Without nary a thought of the 21 college students, Black and white college students, who stepped off a bus from Nashville there almost 61 years ago and into a mob of hate.

Students who only wanted to be free to ride. Free to ride while sitting next to whomever and to go wherever they pleased.

Why would Musk care? Why would he care when his boss and their Republican party bullied and threatened the Black mayor of the nation’s capital to take a jackhammer to a street mural that simply declares that our lives matter?

Threatened to strip millions in transportation funding from Black-Black Washington, D.C., if the city did not rip from the ground the sunshine-yellow “Black Lives Matter” street mural painted near the White House in 2020 amid our long-gone racial reckoning.

On Tuesday, its removal began.

If our lives don’t matter to Republicans, Musk and President Trump, then our history certainly doesn’t.

We’re told the bus station, which also houses a museum dedicated to those Freedom Riders, is no longer for sale. Republican Sen. Katie Britt said “…this has been resolved,” that it was no longer on the U.S. General Services Administration’s list of 400 (ahem) “non-core” federal buildings set to be sold to cut costs. That list was released on March 4 before disappearing behind yet another DOGE dodge.

Britt declared she’d spoken with the Republican administration that had been set on deeding it to the highest bidder.

Let’s be clear: That historic space would still be for sale had Alabama’s two Democrats in Congress not rightly pitched a fit.

Two days after the list became public, Rep. Shomari Figures, whose congressional district includes Montgomery, and Rep. Terri Sewell co-signed a letter asking the Government Services Administration to remove the museum from the list.

“Given its historical and cultural significance,” they wrote. “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.”

That morning, Sewell brought a whole lot more on the sale to social media. “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand!” she wrote on Musk’s Twitter/X. “I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!”

Figures is still waiting for White House or GSA confirmation that the site is off the blocks. “We’ve discussed it with Senator Britt and know that she is working with us to resolve this matter,” he told me Monday. “We are still waiting to see something official from the White House or GSA saying the building is removed from the list.

“Regardless, it never should have happened, and we are working toward introducing legislation to prevent this from happening in the future.”

Sewell’s spokesperson, Christopher Kostova, said: “The Trump Administration likes to call itself ‘the most transparent administration in history.’ If that’s the case, they should stop hiding the list of properties for sale and confirm for the American people that this important piece of our civil rights history won’t be sold off to the highest bidder.

“Until they do, Congresswoman Sewell will continue to stand up and speak out against this injustice.”

Jackhammers cannot erase us, nor can an indignant For Sale sign.

Where we marched, rode, walked and sat. Where we fought. Where we died. It will stand. It will endure.

It will matter longer than will Musk.