Abrams has been a vocal critic of Confederate imagery on state symbols.As noted below, I was just at Stone Mountain for the annual Highland Games. The site has been tied to the Klan since 1915, when it was privately owned and chiefly used for rock quarries. One of the owners was tied up with the re-founding of the Klan, and offered the site as a location for the ceremony. In 1958, a Georgia government then intensely interested in defending segregation purchased the mountain specifically to be a monument to the Confederacy. The flag Abrams was burning dates to the same era, being adopted in 1956.
Shortly after white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., she called for the removal of the carving of Confederate war leaders from Stone Mountain’s massive granite face. Noting the state-owned site’s link to the Ku Klux Klan, she said we “must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the Union.”
What few seem to realize is that the current Georgia flag is just as much a Confederate symbol as the one people got so upset about in the 1990s. I suppose that, if elected, Abrams would want to change the flag again. Maybe this time they can just put Dr. King's face on the flag and leave it at that.
As for the mountain, it is maintained by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, a state agency that is not supported by taxes but by usage fees and the like. When I go camping in the park, I help maintain the Association. The Highland Games, the annual Cherokee-led Pow Wow, and similar cultural events do likewise. So too does the use of the golf course, the lakes, and so on. They have contracted out theme park attractions and similar services, and get a cut of the profits from all of those things. What they don't control is the carving; the State Legislature would have to approve legislation to remove it.
I hate to see such a beautiful place continually mired in ugliness and controversy. This feud is a feud about honor, specifically, about whom we will honor and whom we will treat as shameful. The Confederate leadership included some men who merit honor by virtue, but many who did not -- especially Jeff Davis, who is on the memorial carving. The Confederacy itself deserves little honor. The Klan deserves none. Perhaps there is a compromise position that can handle all that, but so far I haven't seen it.
4 comments:
I thought of you yesterday when I saw those flag-burning reports. I assume that won't be a popular stance in your state?
Not that long ago it would have been deadly. The question is whether Atlanta has grown enough over the last years as to obviate the issue. International immigrants have no reason to care; intranational immigrants may well be on the other side. At some point demographics will overcome; maybe not this year, but soon and forever.
After this, there will be something else to object to. Flags, carvings...all that is immaterial. It is finding something to club others with that counts. The need for struggle is the motivation.
You could well be right, AVI, but I tend to cut Southern blacks some slack on this point. Their grievance isn't invented, not even now, and it would be fair to find some way to put it behind us honorably.
I think most of the grievance-mongers can go jump, but Southern blacks and American Indians I take seriously. It's a hard history.
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