Stone Mountain Park ‘truth-telling’ exhibits damaged by water leak
Flooding from a burst pipe has extensively damaged exhibits for a new “truth-telling” museum at Stone Mountain Park, delaying its planned unveiling from December until sometime this spring.
Bill Stephens, CEO of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, confirmed that a rusted water pipe burst near the top of the park’s Memorial Hall on Nov. 14, flooding all three floors of the building that is slated to house the new Interpretive Center at Stone Mountain Park.
The water damaged floors and walls that held exhibits, most of which were interactive, weeks before the museum’s public opening, Stephens said.
“They’ve taken most, if not all, of the exhibits out and are taking them back to Birmingham to redo them,” he said.
The building was originally completed in 1963 and still contained many of its original plumbing and electrical infrastructure, Stephens said.
Cost of the damage, to both the building and exhibits, will be covered by insurance, he said.
The state has allocated about $15 million for the creation of the museum to “tell the truth” about Stone Mountain Park’s racist history. That includes $11 million in bond funding in the fiscal 2024 state budget and another $4.24 million in direct appropriation in the fiscal 2025 budget.
The funds are allotted for renovations to the building that will house the exhibits and the cost of creating the museum. A little more than $14 million has been spent so far, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp, who declined further comment.
The state faces a lawsuit from the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans that alleges the Stone Mountain Memorial Association is violating a state law requiring the association to maintain the park as an “appropriate and suitable memorial for the Confederacy.”
The lawsuit, filed in DeKalb County Superior Court, seeks an injunction to stop the museum’s creation.
Stephens declined to discuss specific details of the exhibits for the Interpretive Center, saying he does not want to give anything away before it is completed and unveiled.
The memorial association in November 2022 chose Warner Museums to design the exhibits. It pitched several ideas, including an exhibit called “Monuments and Mythmaking,” detailing how Confederate soldiers were commemorated in the South while the contributions of African Americans to the Union’s victory were marginalized.
The original proposal said another section would detail “how collective memory reshaped the cause, outcome and meaning of the Civil War,” outlining the role white Southerners played in promoting the Lost Cause idea that the war was about states’ rights rather than slavery while continuing to oppress African Americans.
Warner Museums is based in Birmingham. The firm’s projects include the Country Music Hall of Fame and several civil rights exhibits, including one at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a Black church bombed in 1963 by white supremacists.
A representative of Warner Museums could not be reached for comment.
Stone Mountain is the home of the world’s largest Confederate monument.
Its massive mountainside carving depicts Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. Its creation spans decades and has ties to the Jim Crow era, the Ku Klux Klan and, decades later, the state of Georgia’s resistance to court-ordered desegregation.
For years, civil rights groups and historians have criticized the park’s approach to memorializing the Civil War and promoting a “lost cause” version of Confederate history.
While largely dismissing calls to remove the bas-relief carving, the state-run association has taken steps in recent years to de-emphasize its glorification of the Confederacy, including removing the carving from its official logo and relocating a prominent display of Confederate flags.
About the Author
Reed Williams is an enterprise reporter on the Local team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
