Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002
From: Northwestern Georgia, USA
Status: offline
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John's comments are rife with error, conflating all kinds of things and mixing up fact and error.
Stone Mountain was private property owned by an individual who became involved in the Ku Klux Klan. He was not a Confederate veteran. Nor was the Klan some simple group devoted to white supremacy in the South (Indiana had the largest KKK membership in the 1920s). The KKK was an incredibly complex history. The first iteration, after the war, was mainly focused on law enforcement friendly to southerners at a time when all offices were staffed through federal efforts. Since most of the members were Confederate veterans or their sons, they of course had antiquated notions about blacks that we do not agree with. But the primary purpose was not racial. A second iteration came about in the 1920s. It was largely rooted to the promotion of "white protestant Americanism." It was a weird conglomeration of people driven by many interests. The leaders were primarily interested in making money. The membership was against anything not white and protestant and against many immoralities, including drinking and fornication. (A prominent, philandering white man in east Georgia was castrated by the Klan for his infidelities.) As noted, membership in Indiana and many other northern states exceeded that of the South. This group was a weird, volatile, often unkind brotherhood but usually not focused on white supremacy beyond maintaining the regrettable status quo in which blacks were treated as second-class citizens. That Klan died in the 1920s, buried by scandal. The third iteration began in the '40s and continues today, in small, scattered numbers. This group does include a fair number of the remnant "white supremacists," which are actually a tiny percentage of the population (thank goodness).
Stone Mountain hasn't had an annual cross burning, at least on the public property, since I've been in Georgia. Cross burnings in Georgia are essentially non-existent and have been for the 40 years I've lived here. I'm a white southerner living in a conservative rural area. The South I know bears little relation to the exaggerations painted by those who don't live here but who get inflamed by the inaccuracies of the press and notions of superiority.
There is essentially zero % of the population interested in white supremacy or other whacko agendas. I know there must be a few out there, because CNN likes to find them and play it up for rapt television audiences that don't have a clue.
Basically all Confederate monuments in Georgia were erected from the 1890s to the 1920s. I don't know where John gets his "1950s and 1960s" notion from. That's simply not even close to being truth. But it makes for a nice allegation - what better way to discredit monuments that to tie them to the anti-segregation sentiment that erupted in the 1950s. Yes, the changes to the Georgia flag were for that reason. For that reason, in 1998 I spoke up publicly to support the change of the Georgia flag to pre-1956, making a lot of my neighbors very angry. (The Sons of Confederate Veterans, either intentionally or coincidentally, won't ask me to speak because of my views.) The monuments really were installed to honor veterans - not as some weird political statement.
But I can understand why black Georgians are offended by the monuments, although (as another Forumite posted above) there are reasons that isn't absolutely necessary. So I can understand the removal of the monuments or other vestiges of the Confederacy so that we don't give offense. I take my position here from the counsel in the Book of Romans that we should avoid be stumbling blocks to others, unnecessarily giving offense. Like Sam Watkins wrote in Company Aytch, it's time to furl the flag (and other mementos) never again to be unfurled. We live in a different society and it's okay and gracious to yield here, even though we regret tearing down things that honored those who served.
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