Controversy over Confederate flags and symbols has spurred the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to reconsider Stone Mountain Park as a site for future events.
The Atlanta Fed, one of a dozen banks across the country that are branches of the nation’s central bank, held an annual conference in the park in recent years. Carved into the granite of the mountain that dominates the area are three massive Confederate figures: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.
The Confederate flag is also displayed at the park.
“The Atlanta Fed is committed to diversity and is sensitive to the concerns raised surrounding the display of Confederate flags,” Fed spokeswoman Jean Tate said in a statement. “The concerns raised by the display of the flags will be a part of the evaluation process going forward.”
Calls for an end to officially sanctioned displays of the flag rose in intensity in the aftermath of last month’s shooting in a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., that left nine people dead. The suspect reputedly had white supremacist leanings.
Georgia State Representative LaDawn Jones, (D-Atlanta), has called for a boycott of the Stone Mountain Park until the flags are moved, the AJC has reported.
The Fed held its financial markets conference at Jekyll Island and Sea Island before the recession, then shifted the event to Stone Mountain to cut costs. The most recent confab ended April 1.
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