100 signatures reached
To: Georgia House of Representatives Karen Bennett
Take It Down Now: Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial Engraving!
Remove the Confederate Memorial Carving from Stone Mountain immediately!
Why is this important?
On Saturday, August 12th, white nationalists marched through Charlottesville, communities and the University of Virginia campus, rallying around a statue of the Confederacy and carrying torches evoking a history of violent racial terrorism. The next day in Charlottesville they killed in the name of their white supremacist symbols. Protesters were rammed by a car killing someone in a terrorist attack. These symbols were not chosen randomly. Confederate monuments have been erected and remain as a direct rebuke to the recognition of the full humanity of Black people. Confederate monuments were built and given places of honor in public space as gains in this recognition have been made and it is the commitment to the reversal of this recognition of humanity that draws white nationalists to these symbols.
These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these monuments altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point.
Stone Mountain Park is often considered to be the State's greatest natural tourist attraction, 4 million people visit every year, making it one of the highest attendance attractions in the United States. Stone Mountain is known for its Confederate Memorial Carving- the largest high relief sculpture in the world of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson which measures 90 feet by 190 feet. It was initially commissed by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, the founding member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy when it was owned by the Vernarable Brothers. In 1958, Stone Mountain Park was purchased by the state of Georgia. In 1970, the carving was dedicated and it was finally completed in 1972. Stone Mountain is also the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan. In 1915, a group seeking to revive the KKK marched to the top of Stone Mountain and burned a cross. This helped revive the Klan in the United States. As recently as 2016, white supremists held a "white power" rally in Stone Mountain Park.
This Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial carving is a direct slap in the face to black people not only in Georgia but to all living in the United States. It is the largest symbol of "white supremacy" in our nation and it is time for it to come down!
These symbols of white supremacy have always been memorials to the cause of slavery and the denial of humanity to Black people. Now they are being weaponized to rally white supremacists. We have the power to diffuse these modern-day lynch mobs by removing these monuments altogether, instead of giving white supremacists a rally point.
Stone Mountain Park is often considered to be the State's greatest natural tourist attraction, 4 million people visit every year, making it one of the highest attendance attractions in the United States. Stone Mountain is known for its Confederate Memorial Carving- the largest high relief sculpture in the world of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson which measures 90 feet by 190 feet. It was initially commissed by Mrs. C. Helen Plane, the founding member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy when it was owned by the Vernarable Brothers. In 1958, Stone Mountain Park was purchased by the state of Georgia. In 1970, the carving was dedicated and it was finally completed in 1972. Stone Mountain is also the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan. In 1915, a group seeking to revive the KKK marched to the top of Stone Mountain and burned a cross. This helped revive the Klan in the United States. As recently as 2016, white supremists held a "white power" rally in Stone Mountain Park.
This Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial carving is a direct slap in the face to black people not only in Georgia but to all living in the United States. It is the largest symbol of "white supremacy" in our nation and it is time for it to come down!