Confederate Group Sues “Truth Telling” Exhibit At Stone Mountain

The Georgia Division of the Sons of Accomplice Veterans (SCV) is suing to dam a proposed “Fact Telling” exhibit at Stone Mountain Park, claiming it violates state regulation meant to guard Accomplice monuments. In response to Capital B Information, the lawsuit was filed final week, difficult efforts to discover the location’s connections to slavery, segregation, and white supremacy—calling it a direct risk to their model of Southern reminiscence.

Unusual.

The transfer comes simply because the Stone Mountain Memorial Affiliation (SMMA) pushes ahead with plans to reframe the narrative surrounding the nation’s largest Accomplice monument, the place towering carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson have loomed because the early twentieth century.

A Monument Etched in White Supremacy

Capital B stories the carvings—first etched into Stone Mountain in 1915—coincide with the Ku Klux Klan’s rebirth ceremony held on the mountain’s peak that very same 12 months. The three,200-acre park, positioned in East Atlanta, has lengthy been criticized for glorifying Accomplice leaders and ignoring the trauma that legacy holds for Black Georgians and past.

Regardless of its previous, the location is now frequented by a various crowd. From power-walking the paths to households scaling the rocky summit, the realm has reworked into a logo of twin realities—leisure and legacy. However behind the picturesque views, tensions are resurfacing.

Georgia Allotted $11M to Inform the Full Story

In 2021, amid nationwide protests over the homicide of George Floyd, the Stone Mountain Memorial Affiliation voted to take away Accomplice flags from common strolling trails and authorised plans for a brand new instructional middle. 

“We’ve simply taken our first step at the moment to the place we have to go,” Rev. Abraham Mosley, the SMMA’s first Black chairman and an appointee of Governor Brian Kemp, instructed Captial B reporters.

With $11 million authorised by Georgia’s Normal Meeting in 2023, the SMMA introduced on Warner Museums to design the brand new exhibit. The proposed middle is meant to contextualize the Confederacy and dismantle the falsehoods perpetuated by the “Misplaced Trigger” motion.

In response to the proposal, the exhibit will study:

“…how the collective reminiscence created by Southerners in response to the actual and imagined threats to the very basis of Southern society, the establishment of slavery… was fertile floor for the event of the Misplaced Trigger motion.”

The Lawsuit: A Battle Over Historical past

Capital B through the Related Press stories the Georgia Sons of Accomplice Veterans usually are not glad. Their lawsuit cites two particular state codes handed in 2019: Georgia Code 50-3-1(b)(3), which bans the elimination, relocation, or concealing of state-owned monuments, and Georgia Code 12-3-192.1, which mandates that Stone Mountain be preserved as a tribute to the Confederacy.