By Ryan Higgins
Deep down in the south exists Stone Mountain, a state-sanctioned national park in the temperate plains of Dekalb county, Georgia, 16 miles east of Atlanta. Stone Mountain is a gorgeous nature preserve and boasts four million tourists annually. Equipped with multiple golf courses, 15 miles of hiking, biking, walking, lodging, dining, and entertainment, what is not to love? Stone Mountain has something for everyone, even your racist uncle. Why not bring the in-laws? I hope you and your kinship are fans of the Confederacy because, at Stone Mountain, they’ve got it all. Roadways, wonderfully intricate stonemasons, and state legislature have preserved and dignified the careers of men who fought for the institution of slavery. While they have removed the confederate tributes around the main hiking trails (by moving them to glades and offshoots) and changed the logo a bit, Stone Mountain exists as a monument to the Confederacy.
According to Linns.com, Stone Mountain was the birthplace of The Second National Klan. This chapter is now considered a terrorist organization by the FBI. Ten years after its foundation, The Second National Klan boasted as many as five million members according to The Digital Public Library of America. The conception of this new chapter of the Klan was chronologically aligned with the release of the film Birth of a Nation. This silent film depicted blacks as savages only fit for subservient tasks and made racial violence rise dramatically.
Georgia's state legislature protects Stone Mountain, and Stone Mountain is explicitly identified as a state park, among other unsavory things. Specifically, in Section 12-3-192.1, under the purposes of association, it states, "the memorial to the heroes of the Confederate States of America graven upon the face of Stone Mountain shall never be altered, removed, concealed, or obscured in any fashion." This blatant expression of confederate patriotism is an example of racism living on in state governments. They could have just as easily said in their purposes of association “to honor the lives lost in the Civil War,” but they needed to state an unmistakable homage to the confederacy.
The main attraction at Stone Mountain National Park is a 90-foot tall carving on the side of the mountain depicting Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis riding on horseback with their hats over their chest. Many want the carving removed, and many say that it is part of a sort of heritage that we all share. This argument falls flat because Stone Mountain is of no historical significance other than the fact that the Klan used to meet there. None of the generals depicted are even from Georgia, and there was never a civil war battle fought at Stone Mountain. To top it all off, the carving is not even from the Civil War era. It was completed in 1972.
Stone Mountain National Park thrives economically and is an asset to the state of Georgia’s income. This is bizarre to me because racism is usually a tongue-in-cheek thing, but it's right there in Georgia’s state legislature. Whether the politicians are that way or if it stems from the private interest group Herschend Family Entertainment, or someone leveraging them, or all of them in tandem. I do not foresee the carving and the confederate flags at Stone Mountain existing for my entire lifetime. However, any amount of time is too long for it to exist.
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