From an LA Times article: Time to honor Martin Luther King at Confederate memorial in Georgia? - The group that runs Stone Mountain Park wants to put a bell tower honoring Dr. King by referencing the line line his “I Have a Dream” speech: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia”. I thought it was a neat idea (especially if it sits atop that bas-relief of those treacherous rebels and hopefully overshadows them). Note: I don’t want the bas-relief gone because it is a part of history, good and bad, but current context is great. Up until this point, when you said ‘Stone Mountain’, I thought ‘Klan rallies’ and just made sure it wasn’t on my to-do list; this bell tower nudges my thinking to ‘Progress!’ and ‘Still not a camping type person so still not on my to-do list’.
I read the first paragraph and “Huh?” and then my attention was caught by the next article in my feed, NAACP, Confederate groups oppose plan for MLK memorial at Stone Mountain and was all, “Really? This is what you people can agree on?” Anything that pro-Confederate groups (past and present) dislike, I’m generally good for; but in this case, the local NAACP chapters are being idiotic. Tributes to Dr. King belong everywhere, but especially in former bastions of the KKK. I really don’t think anyone would believe in any shape, form or fashion that Dr. King supported the Confederacy.
So what do you think? Let’s have a bell to ring or wipe it out and start fresh or hell, it’s Georgia and the outdoors - clearly a portal to hell and I want nothing to do with it. I am trying the poll option - patience!
I can see the NAACP’s point. All these memorials to Confederates are the problem, and putting up a tribute to a non-racist right next to them doesn’t actually address the controversy. Racist people who tried to destroy the United States should not be honored, period.
Personally, I think the State of Georgia should divest itself of the whole park.
Stone Mountain is the largest confederate memorial in the world, and its funding was largely raised by Klan members. It honors Stonewall Jackson, who owned six slaves and fought to keep that right, as well as Jefferson Davis, who said, “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing,” and Robert E. Lee, who once wrote, "The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.”
Do I think a token memorial to Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. should be placed atop that? Absolutely not.
More than that – Stone Mountain was the site of the Founding of the second Klan in 1915, and was owned by the Venable Brothers, who were instrumental in that re-founding. Stone Mountain’s history is closely bound to the Klan.
On the other hand, Georgia has been trying to promote the place as an attraction and location for outings, and trying to divest the Mountain of its racist past. Hence, I suspect, this latest overture to the black community.
What else are they going to do with it? Blast the sculpture from the rock? That feels too much like the historical destruction that the Taliban and ISIS did.
On the other hand, a bell tower in honor of King seems much too small, in comparison to the monumental sculpture. It’ll be lost in the comparison.
I DO think that Georgia can reclaim the mountain from its racist past, but it would require a really big effort – something like adding a same-scale (or larger) bas relief of Martin Luther King beside the Confederate leaders.
It’s a god thing that the original plans for Stone Mountain didn’t get implemented. IIRC, they not only wanted a LOT more figures up there, but also depictions of robed KKK figures, as well. THAT would be really hard to recover from.
I’m sure the Stone Mountain folks are just so surprised there was any controversy. I think their options were to either leave it alone or propose sandblasting the current sculpture. Putting a dinky little tribute to MLK solves nothing.
The park seems to have no historical ties to the Civil War other than the Klan bought it in 1915 and carved an image into it. I see no problem with removing any and all ties to the Confederacy, including sandblasting the carving.
I should add that I don’t see value in destroying the sculpture. It is an achievement, but it should be put in the proper context.
And by proper context, I mean that even bigger bas relief figures of Frederick Douglass, MLK, Obama, and Al Sharpton should be created around the Confederate generals, perhaps with an inscription that reads: “Those small men sought to oppress, divide, and destroy the United States.”
Yes - they are trying to pretend you can separate out the memorial from the KKK history. I focused in on the funding and founding of the memorial as an example of how the two are inextricably connected.
Not to mention the fact that even if the KKK was not involved in any way, it is still a towering memorial to three men who are famous for fighting to preserve slavery. It’s racist no matter what.
I don’t think it does. They destroyed 3,000 year old cities. This is a relatively recent memorial, founded by racists to honor three men that fought for the right to own people. It’s more akin to toppling statues of dictators, if anything.
I don’t think you can cancel out the intent of that memorial by placing something next to it, no matter how big it is.
[QUOTE=Barkis is Willin’]
I see no problem with removing any and all ties to the Confederacy, including sandblasting the carving.
[/QUOTE]
I agree. If you want Stone Mountain to be divested of its racist past, really do it. Then talk about building a memorial to someone who deserves one.
The Taliban used artillery to destroy monumental sculptures of Buddhist figures carved in stone. I’d say that the parallel is very exact (except for the antiquity of the artwork.)
Easier said than done. It took a helluva long time to carve the bas reliefs (as it did at Mount Rushmore, and at the Crazy Horse monument). Even nukes would have a hard time blowing the Mountain (which is uncommonly like a big, isolated rock) “to smithereens”.
Destroying the figures, however, would be a lot simpler than carving them was.
The effort needed would enhance the honor. It doesn’t seem like a practical approach though. Let’s say we just remove the relief from the stone. Shouldn’t take that long with drills and conventional explosives.
I understand your point about the Buddha statues, the antiquity does make a difference, but even though there would be a poetic justice to removing Stone Mountain it is an uncomfortable thought to be engaging in such gross censorship, even where it seems justified to me.
Personally I thin if you REALLY want to piss off the ex-confederates and the KKK, put up statues of Union leaders like Grant and Meade.
If you REALLY want to piss them off, put up a memorial to General Sherman who’s “March to the Sea” went by the area and wiped out the Georgian economy which they really never recovered from.
It was always odd to me that they didn’t feature any Georgia or Battles for Atlanta specific generals. Jefferson Davis is the only one I know for a fact to have even been to Atlanta (and that because he was catching a train to check out the disastrous situation in Chattanooga), and incidentally he was not popular in Georgia (he and Georgia’s governor flat out hated each other). While certainly there were many Georgians who fought under Jackson and Lee you’d think it would make more sense to go with generals like Johnston and Hood and Wheeler and others who actually fought hard to defend Atlanta from the Union.
I wonder how much the fact that the defense of Atlanta was a failure played in deciding who to blast onto the mountain, or if it was just a “Lee and Jackson are better known and more romanticized” factor.
Whatever the case, I don’t really have strong opinions on a MLK monument being atop the mountain (there’s no shortage of MLK monuments and any great healing they’ve brought about has been quite negligible). Georgia has way too many concerns to dedicate money to blasting their faces off a mountain or adding a new face to it. A couple of years ago they became the only state in the union to close their archives due to budgetary reasons, and if you really wanted to help Atlantans you’d make MARTA run efficiently.