Posted on 05/25/2021 10:12:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
Ever since the craze of trying to erase the nation’s history by tearing down monuments that some people find offensive got started, there have been repeated demands to “do something” about Stone Mountain Confederate monument in Georgia. Unlike some of the typical statues that cities erect that can be dragged down during a riot with some ropes and chains, however, this one isn’t so easy for protesters to tackle. For one thing, it’s gigantic. It takes up three acres of space and it’s literally carved into the side of a mountain, as the name suggests. It depicts Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson riding on horseback. To get rid of it would require a significant amount of dynamite and a skilled demolition crew. Also, it’s one of Georgia’s biggest and most frequently visited tourist destinations.
In response to the calls for changes by BLM advocates and others, some alterations are indeed coming. But the mural is not going to be destroyed or changed. Instead, a new exhibit will be added to the park, seeking to tell the whole, complicated story of the region’s past, including the involvement of the Klu Klux Klan. Is this going to appease everyone? Obviously not, but at least they’re making an effort. (CNN)
A new exhibit that seeks to explain “the whole story” of the nation’s largest Confederate monument, including the history of the Ku Klux Klan there, is coming to Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park, the park’s board said Monday.The exhibit will be developed together with “credible and well-established historians,” the board said in a news release, “to tell the warts and all history of the Stone Mountain carving,” including the 1915 rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan on the mountain “and the 50-years of Klan rallies which followed,” until the state bought the mountain and land around it in 1958…
The monument has long been a flashpoint of debate between those who see it as part of the South’s heritage and those for whom it represents White supremacy. It cannot be removed under Georgia law.
Last summer, Stone Mountain was the site of simultaneous protests and counterprotests with armed participants keeping the authorities on edge. (You can watch a video report of that conflict here.) Thankfully, things didn’t get too out of hand.
As far as this new exhibit they’re planning goes, I don’t have any problem with it. The country’s history is complicated and people should have the opportunity to be educated about it, including both the good and the bad. Or, as the planning board put it, “the warts and all history of the Stone Mountain carving.” If the solution is to expand one of their parks and provide even more historical information, that’s a great approach.
It’s certainly far better than allowing mobs to descend on public property and destroy existing displays. I have to wonder how much more rational this debate could have been if people could have negotiated to have other statues and monuments expanded with additional features to add historical context rather than just smashing them to pieces in the dead of night. There’s never been any point to these attacks from the beginning. No amount of destroyed statuary will erase the past and make it so the antebellum south never existed.
Just for a bit of background, the Stone Mountain memorial is recognized as the largest bas-relief artwork in the world. It’s actually larger than Mount Rushmore, though perhaps not as famous. The park officially opened in 1965, but planning for the monument is believed to have begun as early as 1869. As a darker part of its history, the monument was considered to be “holy ground” for the Klu Klux Klan according to many historians.
Remember going there, nice monument.
Can’t allow us Southerners to have our history, culture, and pride. Eff off, BLM.
Regards,
Never try to compromise with a cobra.
I could see a BLM member of the military stealing an anti-tank weapon and blowing Stone Mountain up...and then facing no charges for it.
Why co.promise anything?
I think the Democrats’ involvement in creating the KKKshould be commemorated. Lots of places. Maybe even in Chicago.
Recall visiting sometime back 20 years ago - all the claims of how large the relief sculpture is are somewhat misleading. While it may be that large, it is in direct reference to a large smooth round stone surface that dwarfs it to relative insignificance.
Being on the NORTHERN side of the mountain in the shade most (if not all) of the day makes it even less imposing. Rushmore, in comparison, is dominating with only the sky to frame much of the outline. On a sunny day, blazing near-white stone makes the effect more impressive.
Of course not!
My statement was made entirely in jest!
It angers me that they can talk about even only the possibility of blasting the semi-relief off the face of the mountain without remembering how the entire world decried a comparable act by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Regards,
I was going to say that. Maybe Portland
Don’t give them any ideas.....
They do charge admission, BTW.
I wish just once these people would be told, “Shove it, the monument/statue remains.”
1 7 9 3
Aw, crap. I’m not a big fan of the Confederacy. But the proper response should have been, “If you don’t like it, don’t go there.”
> To get rid of it would require a significant amount of dynamite... <
That would not be a problem for the fascist left. They might even get a government grant. And it’s not like it hasn’t been done before. Here’s the work of another fascist group, the Taliban.
Thank you Nimrata Randhawa.
The new, BLM monument will be required visiting for all school children and politicians.
I just hate this. Our monuments and statues should be sacrosanct and harming them a federal offense punishable by lengthy jail time and heavy fines.
I passed by Overton Park recently in Memphis and was saddened to see a stump where Nathan Forest Bedford once stood. The statue of Jeff Davis had also been torn down.
Monuments and statues are torn down in times of revolution.
If that is so, then let’s get on with it.
So they are really going to state in writing that the KKK was founded by the DemonRAT party!
“the 1915 rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan on the mountain”
Don’t blame the mountain.
“In spite of its divisiveness, The Birth of a Nation was a huge commercial success and profoundly influenced both the film industry and American culture. The film has been acknowledged as an inspiration for the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, which took place only a few months after its release.”
“The Birth of a Nation, originally called ‘The Clansman’, is a 1915 American silent drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.’s 1905 novel and play ‘The Clansman’. Griffith co-wrote the screenplay with Frank E. Woods and produced the film with Harry Aitken.”
“The Birth of a Nation is a landmark of film history. It was the first 12-reel film ever made and, at three hours, also the longest up to that point. Its plot, part fiction and part history, chronicles the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and the relationship of two families in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras over the course of several years—the pro-Union (Northern) Stonemans and the pro-Confederacy (Southern) Camerons. It was originally shown in two parts separated by an intermission, and it was the first to have a musical score for an orchestra. It pioneered close-ups, fade-outs, and a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras (another first) made to look like thousands.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
The movie was based on a 1905 book.
“Dixon wrote two best-selling novels, The Leopard’s Spots: A Romance of the White Man’s Burden – 1865–1900 (1902) and The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), that romanticized Southern white supremacy, endorsed the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, opposed equal rights for blacks, and glorified the Ku Klux Klan as heroic vigilantes. Film director D. W. Griffith adapted The Clansman for the screen in The Birth of a Nation (1915), which inspired the creators of the 20th-century rebirth of the Klan.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dixon_Jr.
“Dixon grew up after the Civil War, during the Reconstruction period. The government confiscation of farmland, coupled with what Dixon saw as the corruption of local politicians, the vengefulness of Union troops, along with the general lawlessness of the period, all served to embitter him, and he became staunchly opposed to the reforms of Reconstruction.”
“Dixon’s father, Thomas Dixon Sr., and his maternal uncle, Col. Leroy McAfee, both joined the Klan early in the Reconstruction era with the aim of ‘bringing order’ to the tumultuous times. McAfee was head of the Ku Klux Klan in Piedmont, North Carolina.”
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