Atlanta NAACP chapter calls for removal of massive Confederate sculpture in public park

Fox News ^ | 07/14/2015

[SeekAndFind]

A sculpture in Georgia larger than a football field – depicting Civil War luminaries Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson – has become the latest target in the push to purge the South of signs of the Confederacy.

The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP called Monday for the elimination of all symbols of the Confederacy from Stone Mountain Park, whose marquee attraction is the 90-foot-high, 190-foot-wide sculpture carved deep into the mountain.

"Those guys need to go,” chapter leader Richard Rose told WSB-TV, referring to Davis, the former president of the Confederate States of America, and the two Confederate generals. “They can be sand-blasted off, or somebody could carefully remove a slab of that and auction it off to the highest bidder.

"My tax dollars should not be used to commemorate slavery,” he added.

In addition to the removal of Confederate symbols from Stone Mountain Park, located outside of Atlanta, the group says it also wants all symbols removed from state-owned buildings, parks and lands.

A spokesman for the park told WSB-TV that any removal of the monuments is up to the Georgia state legislature.

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., who serves the district in which the mountain sits, told local radio station V-103 that he is “not so much affected by Stone Mountain Park as I am by the flag flying at an official government building like a state capitol or even the federal Capitol, a position, the seat of government.”

“I view Stone Mountain as more of a museum-type archaeological place of remembrance for those who want to remember back then and they have a right to remember back then and the park is there,” he said.

[Wallace T.]

Yes. The Confederacy had no intentions on the North, any more than the American colonies had any designs on the British Isles. They may have had designs on the three slave border states and West Virginia. With France in control of Mexico and the desert Southwest being unsuitable for slavery based agriculture, the Confederates may have tried to expand into the Caribbean and Central and northern South America. With Southern secession accomplished, the Monroe Doctrine would have been moot. The South, with British and French cooperation, may have pushed the Spanish out of Cuba and Puerto Rico and colonized the Latin American countries that had been independent for 40 years.

[catfish1957]

Hey blithering idiot, are you partaking of the digging up of CSA General Forrest, along with the Mayor of Memphis and his facist City Council too?

[jmacusa]

I disagree. Lee invaded the North twice. Had he been successful the South could have won the war.

[jmacusa]

What was the South fighting for?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: 1. Taxpayer money should not be going to Confederate crap. Not everyone agrees with it. It offends a good percent of the population.

Well, not everyone agrees with taking it down as well and it has been there for over a century. The fact that you call it crap does not mean that others don’t hold it up with respect as a symbol of their heritage.

So your explanation does not compute -— just because something offends does not mean it should be taken down.

There are quite a number of people who are offended by the stars and stripes as well... do we simply take down something because it offends people?

What about those who take offense at the taking down of the Confederate flag? Their feelings don’t count at all?

RE: 2. This is the USA, not the CSA.

Even those who support the putting up of the Confederate flag acknowledge that this is the USA. So, how does keeping it up repudiate the fact that we are in the USA? You can respect the Confederate Flag and still consider yourself a citizen of the USA. I don’t see how this has to be in conflict.

RE: The government is supposed to endorse America and American stuff, not the Confederacy and anything of that ilk.

But why is putting up the Confederate Flag opposing the American flag? Why can’t the two of them BOTH fly?

#. It represents an ugly period of our history.

Well, the Stars and Stripes represents an ugly period in our history as well. The Confederate flag only flew for a few years during the Civil war as a symbol of Southern Resistance against Northern aggression.

The Stars and Stripes on the other hand FLEW OVER SLAVE TRANSPORTING SHIPS from overseas for periods LONGER than the existence of the Confederate flag.

Question — what do you consider one an ugly part of history yet neglect the other that was similarly flying during an ugly part of our history?

Why this selective outrage?

I await your response...

[SeekAndFind]

RE: You seem to forget what the Confederate crap represents to African-Americans and other minorities.

Do you know that MANY Black Americans fought to defend the South from Northern aggression during the civil war UNDER the Confederate Flag?

[jmacusa]

I'm glad to see you don't venerate the Confederacy and they did indeed deserve to lose. For being directly responsible for the deaths of some 700,000 people Davis and Lee got away with high treason and armed insurrection. But I don't want to see the Confederate flag banned. It is part of our history. To do away with it would be as if to say The Civil War never happened. I don't want to see that flag on government property local, state or Federal. It isn't the flag that defeated Nazism or communism and it isn't the flag our men and women are serving under. However as a matter of free speech I support anyone’s right to own one and fly it on their own property.

[Wallace T.]

The intent of Lee's invasions was to capture Washington, DC, and force the North to negotiate a peace. Maryland stayed in the Union, largely due to the imprisonment of pro-secession legislators, but sentiment was very divided, with Baltimore and southern Maryland pro-secession and western Maryland pro-Union. Had the Southerners taken advantage of their victory at First Manassas (Bull Run), they could have easily taken the capital and forced the Federal government to retreat to Philadelphia. Lincoln had also to worry about secessionist sentiments in the lower Midwest, and in Delaware, New Jersey, and New York City and environs. He may have decided that a loss of 11-14 states was better than absolute dissolution.

An analogy would have been the German conquest of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans had no desire to occupy any part of France other than German speaking Alsace-Lorraine. However, taking the French capital established German military supremacy on the European continent. Lee's intent was similar in nature.

[Ray76]

The stuff that communist dreams are made of.

[o-n-money]

•1849 – The tower blew down during a storm and was never rebuilt.
____________________________________

1849 - Al gore’s great, great, great, grandfather proclaims Climate Change for the first time.

[Crim]

LOL!

[DesertRhino]

It would look different if the south would have won. And Jeff Davis might not have been very nice, but Robert E. Lee would have be magnanimous. The Southerners, in truth were very similar to the northerners.
many were classmates, former coworkers, and family members.

[DesertRhino]

You still never answer one simple question. Why are -your- thoughts on this issue more unforgiving than the actual men who fought on both sides? Men who later spent several decades finding ways to demonstrate genuine friendship, holding reunions, visiting each other at old battle grounds, etc?

They posed for photos together in their old uniforms, with their old flags, they had no problems with each side building monuments and statues.

Its retarded for you to be bitter when people who knew the situation much better than you moved on in life. Or maybe you have a right to be more angry than George Washington Carver, who was born a slave.

[catfish1957]

What this dumbass (Tom Bryan) doesn’t realize, is that even the “Sons of Union Veterans” organization supports the heritage aspects of the CBF. I think this guy is a du plant, here as a disruptor. Nothing more.

[catfish1957]

The constant revisionism by neo-Confederates is frustrating to many people, including me.

You are an utter idiot. There are no heritage supporting Freepers calling for the reforming of the Confederacy (which is what so called neo-confederates want). I can't believe you can be that stupid.

[catfish1957]

Yes.

By saying yes, do you realize that you are supporting and wanting to witness the desecration of General Forrest's grave. You are of the facist liberal ISIS wing of this country. You are a despicable POS, and not worth pissing on.