From Reuters:
“Georgia officials vote to
make changes to largest U.S. Confederate monument”
Managers of the largest U.S.
shrine to the pro-slavery Confederacy on Monday voted to create a museum
exhibit to "tell the truth" about the Georgia monument and its giant
carvings of Confederate figures, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The
Stone Mountain Memorial Association's board of directors also voted to relocate
Confederate flags to a less-traveled area of Stone Mountain Park, located about
25 miles northeast of Atlanta, and to change the association's logo, which
replicates the mountainside carvings of Confederate President Jefferson Davis
and Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
The Stone Mountain Confederate
Memorial, a nine-story-high bas-relief sculpture carved into a sprawling rock
face, was promoted by segregationist state officials and has become a beacon
for white supremacists. The spectacular setting, with an immense stone that
protrudes from the greenery, was chosen to venerate the losing side of the U.S.
Civil War, when southern states fought to preserve the chattel slavery of
Blacks captured from Africa and their descendants born in America. The
resolution comes after the Journal-Constitution quoted Stone Mountain Memorial
Association CEO Bill Stephens saying he wants to "tell the truth about the
history of Stone Mountain, of what it was, what it is and what it ought to
be." The board also voted to create an advisory committee that will
attempt to put the carvings in context, according to the newspaper. Officials
of the association could not be reached for comment by phone or email outside
regular business hours. The first Black chairman of the association's board,
who was named to his post in April, indicated there would be more changes to
come. "We're just taking our first step today, to get where we need to go,"
the Reverend Abraham Mosley said, according to the Journal-Constitution. Monday's
vote came one day before the first anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a
Black man who died when a white police officer in Minneapolis pinned his neck
to the ground with a knee. Floyd's death triggered nationwide protests over
racial injustice and police brutality and revived a debate over Confederate
monuments.
^ This monument to the
Confederacy should remain as a constant reminder to all Americans that racism was
alive in the United States long before the American Civil War, during the
American Civil War and long after the American Civil War. It should no longer
be considered a Confederate Shrine, but a Confederate Shame - actually an American Shame since it was
created after the American Civil War to promote racism. ^
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