CHARLESTON, S.C. — Senator Tim Scott, the first black US senator from the deep South since Reconstruction, is proposing that the site where the Civil War began be designated a national park.

The Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill creating the Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Park as the nation’s 60th national park and second in South Carolina.

Fort Sumter, at Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by Confederate guns on April 12, 1861, in a fight that started four years of civil war.

Moultrie, on nearby Sullivans Island, is where American patriots turned back a British fleet trying to capture Charleston. Both forts are part of the Fort Sumter National Monument.

Associated Press