The Georgia chapter of a Confederacy group has filed a lawsuit against Stone Mountain Park, arguing officials broke state law by planning an exhibit on ties to slavery, segregation and white supremacy.
The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans also alleges in earlier court documents that the board’s decision to relocate Confederate flags from a walking trail violates Georgia law.
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Stone Mountain’s massive carving depicts Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Gen. Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on horseback. Critics who have long pushed for changes say the monument enshrines the “Lost Cause” mythology that romanticizes the Confederate cause as a state’s rights struggle, but state law protects the carving from any changes.
After police brutality spurred nationwide reckonings on racial inequality and the removal of dozens of Confederate monuments in 2020, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, which oversees Stone Mountain Park, voted in 2021 to relocate Confederate flags and build a “truth-telling” exhibit to reflect the site’s role in the rebirth of the Klu Klux Klan, along with the carving’s segregationist roots.
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Other parts of the exhibit would address how the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans perpetuated the “Lost Cause” ideology through support for monuments, education programs and racial segregation laws across the South. It would also tell stories of a small Black community that lived near the mountain after the war.
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“When they come after the history and attempt to change everything to the present political structure, that’s against the law,” said Martin O’Toole, the chapter’s spokesperson.
Sons of the Confederate Veterans members have defended the carvings as honoring Confederate soldiers.
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