Rob Davies wanted to take his family to a Fourth of July parade. He got a monumental chunk of neo-classical culture in the bargain.

"It's different," he said, gazing up at the Millennium Gate, the colossal arch that was dedicated Friday afternoon at Atlantic Station. The Buckhead resident was standing on the sidewalk with his wife, Liz, and their two sons, waiting for the parade that would herald the grand opening.

(ENLARGE)

The Millennium Gate officially opened Friday at Atlantic Station. The 82-foot monument houses a 12,000 square-foot museum of Georiga and Atlanta history.

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"Everything around here looks so modern and urban, and that monument is so old school," Davies said. "But I like it. It's OK."

Atlanta's own Arc de Triomphe opened eight years into the new millennium with a flourish of balloons, a barrage of fireworks and a quirky parade that included Lady Liberty, a bust of George Washington and a costumed Gen. James Oglethorpe, who thanked spectators for living in the state he founded.

The Latin inscription atop the arch dedicates it to peace, but there was no doubt whose name was all over the limestone facing: Rodney Cook Jr., the Atlanta designer who masterminded the project and raised $15 million in private funds to pay for it.

Much of that money came from families whose history of city-building and philanthropy are lauded inside the Millennium Gate museum.

"This is just fantastic," said Asa Candler VI, great-great-grandson of the founder of the Coca-Cola Co., as he examined a case of photos and documents about his family. "I remember visiting Mount Rushmore a few years ago and telling Cook we needed something monumental like that here in Atlanta. It's one thing to talk about it. He did it."

It wasn't just old-line Atlantans who celebrated the opening. Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall and U.S. Rep. John Lewis all rode in the parade and spoke during the dedication ceremony.

"This is a really powerful statement," Lewis said of the arch. "It reminds me of some of the great monuments I've seen in Europe."

But not everyone was wowed.

A small group of dissidents showed up to hand out flyers protesting some of the museum's omissions. They pointed to a recent book by journalist Douglas Blackmon, "Slavery by Another Name," that details how at least two of the families praised inside the Millennium Gate profited more than a century ago from the forced labor of black convicts in their business enterprises.

"This is an elitist project that's more concerned with patting itself on the back than telling the whole truth," said state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), a history professor by training, who stood across the street distributing flyers. "Some of these families became wealthy and influential because they were running slave labor camps."

One of his fellow protesters, the Rev. Derrick Rice of Sankofa United Church of Christ in Atlanta, conceded that he liked the monument itself. "It's beautiful," he said. "We just want it to tell the whole story."

Fort said he would ask for a meeting with Cook to discuss the group's concerns.

But on this Independence Day, Cook was otherwise engaged on the terrace at the foot of the Millennium Gate, where a crowd of well-wishers listened to patriotic music and speeches and then raised a champagne toast to the project's completion.

"This," the man behind the monument said, "is exactly how I envisioned it."