# MLK monument on Stone Mountain: Yea, Nay or Eh? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 14, 2015, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633 "2015-10-14T14:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/41 "2015-10-15T14:11:14Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > There is a big cave in Missouri called [Fantastic Caverns](http://www.fantasticcaverns.com/). In its day it was used as a KKK rally hall as well as a speakeasy, concert hall, radio station, and community center. > > Should they seal up the cave because of that? Or maybe just never mention it? They certainly ought to mention it. If they had carved the stalagmites so that they resembled pointy-hooded Klan members, though, it might be a different matter. Otherwise, there’s really no point in comparing the Caverns to Stone Mountain, with its carvings as the focal point. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/42 "2015-10-15T15:15:04Z")
I still think the Outkast addition is the best possible solution. Although now that I see kudzu mentioned, that’s kind of appealing too. Don’t blast the whole thing, but let the kudzu do its work to show how history continues to grow past these relics. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/43 "2015-10-15T15:22:30Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > To gain support based on sheer amazingness, strictly divorced from ideology, simply requires out-amazing the KKK-inspired carving. > > Like this: re-carve the whole mountain into a gigantic Martin Luther King Jr. head, glowering at downtown Atlanta (no, you’re not a bad person if the Olmec head popped into your mind). A 1700 feet tall head! Well, if we’re going to do that, we might as well supersize a replica of the one in [D.C.](http://f.tqn.com/y/architecture/1/S/o/z/Martin-Luther-King-Memorial.jpg). Now \*that’s \*glowering. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/44 "2015-10-15T15:33:34Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > All over the south are former slave plantations, now they are tourist attractions, Of course they are not called that they are called “Antebellum”. > > Should those be torn down? I’ve been to quite a few plantation tours, and I have yet to visit one that attempts to portray the slave owners as being some type of heroes. Which is exactly why Stone Mountain exists, to portray men who led the efforts to fight a war to preserve slavery as being heroes. That’s one reason why the monument is very different than plantations. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/45 "2015-10-15T15:41:33Z")
> [@CatastrophicFailure](#): > > Stone Mountain is the largest confederate memorial in the world, and [its funding was largely raised by Klan members](http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/Stone_Mountain_Carving). 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.” Who lived 150 years ago that deserves a present-day memorial? And what was that person’s position on LGBT rights? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/46 "2015-10-15T15:47:57Z")
Marie Curie? Though probably not at Stone Mountain. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/47 "2015-10-15T16:49:04Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Agreed. Movements to erase history are reprehensible. Even when we’re talking about our reprehensible history. It doesn’t have to be a movement to erase history, just a movement to erase one artifact of history. There is a slippery slope argument to be made, there are people who want to cleanse history of all unpleasant events, but certainly there is also justification in this case to be argued as well. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/48 "2015-10-15T17:08:00Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > As a keen admirer of Colossal Statue Kitsch, I am horrified that folks are proposing to destroy the bas-reliefs. > > Check out the monstrous and horrifying Volkerschlachtdenkmal in Leipzig, Germany. The centennial monument to the Battle of Nations against the Napoleonic armies, it’s the largest war memorial in Europe and an absolute Lovecraftian nightmare of writhing stone and concrete. Needless to say, Hitler LOVED the thing and enjoyed making speeches standing in front of it. > > [Monument to the Battle of the Nations - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Battle_of_the_Nations#) > > The Germans didn’t tear it down; they just hold annual Bathtub Races in the enormous reflecting pool. > > In other words, I say that having turned the KKK shrine into a Family Fun Park was the best way to detoxify the area. Heh. My father helped detoxify/deNazify that monument. From the article: > [@](#): > > When the US army captured Leipzig on April 18, 1945, the monument was one of the last strongholds in the city to surrender. One hundred and fifty SS soldiers with ammunition and foodstuffs stored in the structure to last three months dug themselves in, but were blasted with artillery and defeated.[17] My father was a mortarman with the US 69th division. One of his more vivid accounts of the war was trying to drop mortar shells into the doorway of the monument (the monument itself was impervious to 81mm mortar fire). ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/49 "2015-10-15T17:11:07Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > There is a big cave in Missouri called [Fantastic Caverns](http://www.fantasticcaverns.com/). In its day it was used as a KKK rally hall as well as a speakeasy, concert hall, radio station, and community center. > > Should they seal up the cave because of that? Too late, now that the Klansmen left. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/50 "2015-10-15T17:17:02Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > 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.” > > Yeah, I’d be okay with that. Yeah, my issue with sandblasting it would be that this is a really huge bas relief that took decades to finish. I don’t like the idea of destroying something that everyone must concede is art, for the simple fact that it’s politically objectionable. I wouldn’t want Hitler’s personal paintings destroyed either, for example. My feelings on issues like this are fairly closely linked to the artistic historical value of what’s being discussed and the feasibility of things other than destroying it. For example a lot of objectionable monuments, the artwork itself can be simply relocated. Some of them aren’t necessarily very artistically valuable, either. For example a statue of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson on horseback isn’t something we have a shortage of, and also can be moved anyway. But a giant bas relief on a mountainside cannot be easily moved, and to be frank there aren’t a lot of large bas reliefs like this in the world. In fact I think it’s the largest. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/51 "2015-10-15T17:25:27Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Agreed. Movements to erase history are reprehensible. Even when we’re talking about our reprehensible history. Not trying to “erase history” just stop racists from glorifying the bad parts. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/52 "2015-10-15T17:42:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not trying to “erase history” just stop racists from glorifying the bad parts. You do that through education, not bowdlerization. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/53 "2015-10-15T17:54:29Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > You do that through education, not bowdlerization. It’s not bowdlerization. It’s stopping over-glorification. Stone Mtn are the ones who are trying to change how we view history. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/54 "2015-10-15T18:02:08Z")
Stone Mountain is historical, primary-source documentation of **how southern Americans of the early 20th century** felt about the Civil War. That war doesn’t exist in a vacuum that stops dead at 1865. Getting rid of the monument is bowdlerization because it contributes to a dishonest narrative about the effects that the Civil War had beyond its own time. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/55 "2015-10-15T18:03:32Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Stone Mountain is historical, primary-source documentation of **how southern Americans of the early 20th century** felt about the Civil War. > . No, it’s how a handful of ignorant racists thought about the Civil war. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/56 "2015-10-15T18:14:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It’s not bowdlerization. It’s stopping over-glorification. Stone Mtn are the ones who are trying to change how we view history. I don’t see how monuments, or the one in question anyway, is trying to _do_ anything. Our agreed upon accounts of history are recorded for all and sundry to learn about. Those that would revise it or otherwise interpret it for their own purposes will do so regardless of whether there is a giant bas relief depicting three major figures from an important era in American history. Not trying to pick on you, **DrD** but I think you’re giving it too much power. Everybody knows the Civil War happened, what it was about(though opinions do differ) and what the outcome was; that last point serving as quite the neutralizer for any negative feelings the depiction stirs up. Plus, we use it as a backdrop for a _laser show_ for Pete’s sake. That’s not exactly showing reverence for “those great heroes” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/57 "2015-10-15T18:28:58Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Everybody knows the Civil War happened, what it was about(though opinions do differ) What it was about? Hell, there are _textbooks_ in Southern states that still print the Big Lie it was about States Rights. Other Big Lies- that the Emancipation Proclamation didnt free any slaves. That there were volunteer black slave units fighting for the CSA. That most slaves were happy and better off. > **[Author of 'Lies My Teacher Told Me' claims American textbooks have been lying...](https://www.businessinsider.com/american-textbooks-have-been-lying-about-what-happened-during-the-civil-war-2015-7)** > > Some American textbooks don't want to offend the South and lose sales. > **[The South still lies about the Civil War](https://www.salon.com/2013/03/16/the_south_still_lies_about_the_civil_war/)** > > In an ongoing revisionist history effort, Southern schools and churches still pretend the war wasn't about slavery A_mong other things, “The Truths of History” asserts that Abraham Lincoln was a mediocre intellect, that the South’s interest in expanding slavery to Western states was its benevolent desire to acquire territory for the slaves it planned to free, and that the Ku Klux Klan was a peaceful group whose only goal was maintaining public order. One of Rutherford’s “authorities” on slavery was British writer William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited Richmond on a tour of the Southern states during the 1850s and sent home a buoyant description of the slaves who attended him: “So free, so happy! I saw them dressed on Sunday in their Sunday best—far better dressed than English tenants of the working class are in their holiday attire.”_ > **[Busted: 6 Civil War Myths](https://www.livescience.com/18863-civil-war-myths.html)** > > From debates over flying the Confederate flag to the war's origins, many Civil War myths persist to this day. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/01/why-do-people-believe-myths-about-the-confederacy-because-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/?tid=trending\_strip\_1](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/07/01/why-do-people-believe-myths-about-the-confederacy-because-our-textbooks-and-monuments-are-wrong/?tid=trending_strip_1) So Stone Mtn perpetuates these lies. It needs to come down. It’s NOT “history” it’s lies. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/58 "2015-10-15T19:11:44Z")
A hundred years from now, somebody may dig up one of those textbooks, and it would be right to say “we need to keep these books because they are an accurate account of the mistaken way some early 21st children were educated in southern states.” It would not be right to say, “we need to burn these books because they are full of lies.” Likewise, it is not right to destroy a hundred-year-old monument because it’s an inaccurate portrayal of the Civil War. It is still an accurate depiction of its own time, and as such it has its own historical value. The difference, of course, is that those textbooks really do represent a fringe element whereas the Stone Mountain monument represents the prevailing attitudes of its day. If your viewpoint is that no piece of art should be allowed to remain unless it presents an accurate and unbiased view of history, I suggest you lay in an awful lot of pens and envelopes. You have a hell of a lot of angry letters to write. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/59 "2015-10-15T19:18:09Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I don’t see how monuments, or the one in question anyway, is trying to _do_ anything. Our agreed upon accounts of history are recorded for all and sundry to learn about. Unless this is a whoosh, you’ve got it all wrong. we demonstrably DON’T have an “agreed upon history”. People use monuments and markers to influence how we see the past. Why do you think there was a movement to try to put Reagan’s head on Mount Rushmore? Have a look at James Loewen’s _Lies Across America_. Even if you disagree with him, there’s plenty of evidence in there about how people fight over monuments and how they want to change them, usually in line with their own agendas: > **[Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong: Loewen, James W.:...](https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Across-America-Historic-Sites/dp/074329629X)** > > Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong \[Loewen, James W.\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong > **[Lies Across America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_Across_America)** > > Lies Across America, a 1999 book by James Loewen, is a sequel to his 1995 work Lies My Teacher Told Me. The book focuses on historical markers and museums across the United States, arguing that every historic site is "a tale of two eras": the one from when the event happened and the one from when the event was commemorated. > The survey starts on the West Coast and moves east, a deliberate break from the traditional American history found in textbooks, which begin with the Pilgrims and follow west... ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633/60 "2015-10-15T19:49:59Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Unless this is a whoosh, you’ve got it all wrong. we demonstrably DON’T have an “agreed upon history”. People use monuments and markers to influence how we see the past. Why do you think there was a movement to try to put Reagan’s head on Mount Rushmore? > > Have a look at James Loewen’s _Lies Across America_. Even if you disagree with him, there’s plenty of evidence in there about how people fight over monuments and how they want to change them, usually in line with their own agendas: > > [Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong: Loewen, James W.: 9780743296298: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Across-America-Historic-Sites/dp/074329629X) > > [Lies Across America - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_Across_America) So are you saying that no account of the past is accurate? That nothing that is taught in school is fact based? I admitted that not everyone agrees on all aspects of our history but as it stands the widely accepted story is that the Union won, slavery was abolished, and mssrs Jackson, Lee and Davis are not regarded as heroes by\* the majority\*. It seems that those things that we _have_agreed upon are recorded and widely available and I suspect people aren’t getting most of their education from a tourist attraction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mlk-monument-on-stone-mountain-yea-nay-or-eh/734633.md?page=4)