Carvings on Stone Mountain.JPG
Carvings on Stone Mountain
Georgia civil rights leaders are speaking out against a plan to place a monument to Martin Luther King on top of Stone Mountain, a proposal also opposed by Confederate groups in the area.
The Atlanta and DeKalb (Georgia) chapters of the NAACP and representatives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference are meeting with Gov. Nathan Deal today to discuss the plan to place a Liberty Bell replica atop Stone Mountain as a memorial to the slain civil rights leader. A Georgia state park, Stone Mountain is home to a giant carving of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
Criticism has swirled around the park after civil rights leaders called for the removal of the carvings after a deadly shooting at a black Charleston church led to increased attention to memorials and symbols of the Confederacy.
Bill Stephens, chief executive of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, said the idea for the memorial came from a gathering of Georgia civil rights leaders at Stone Mountain on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported the memorial would include an elevated tower with a replica bell with the first line from the 1963 speech and the line "Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia."
Georgia civil rights groups, however, said they do not want the MLK memorial near the giant images of Confederate leaders.
"The proposal to include Dr. King (on Stone Mountain) is simply to confuse black folk about the issues," said John Evans, president of the DeKalb County branch of the NAACP. "It's an attempt to gain support from blacks to keep these racist and demeaning symbols."
The groups have called for an ending of state funding to the park, which infamously was the site of the second founding of the KKK in 1915. Georgia purchased the park in 1958.
The memorial plan is also opposed by the Georgia chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
"This decision by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association is wholly inappropriate in that it is an intentional act of disrespect toward the stated purpose of the Stone Mountain memorial from its inception as well as a possible violation of the law which established the Stone Mountain Memorial Association and charged it with promoting the mountain as a Confederate memorial," the group said in a statement.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans said the law establishing the park specifically states that the mountain and all adjacent property are to be used as a Confederate memorial.
"The park was never intended to be a memorial to multiple causes but solely to the Confederacy," they added, saying the plan is akin to "the state flying a Confederate battle flag atop the King Center in Atlanta."