The Stone Mountain Memorial Association will meet a week later than expected to consider proposed changes to the Confederate imagery at Georgia’s most visited tourist attraction.
The memorial association’s board of directors typically meets on the third Monday of every month, but deviations — or the outright cancellation of meetings — are not unusual. Memorial association CEO Bill Stephens said several board members had conflicts for next week’s original meeting date, so the board will instead meet at 1 p.m. on May 24.
The gathering will be closely watched, with the nine-member board expected to vote on several proposals Stephens unveiled last month.
The proposals include creating a new, on-site museum exhibit “telling the truth” about the giant mountainside carving of Confederate leaders and its connections to Lost Cause mythology, the Ku Klux Klan and, decades later, the state’s reaction to federally mandated desegregation.
The proposals also include renaming the park’s Confederate Hall building and relocating Confederate flags that have flown at the base of the mountain’s walk-up trail for decades.
Most of the park’s Confederate tributes would be confined to one 50-acre piece of Stone Mountain Park.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association is a state authority tasked by law with overseeing the operations of Stone Mountain Park and maintaining it as a Confederate monument.
Last month’s meeting was the first held under the guidance of new chairman Rev. Abraham Mosley, whose appointment by Gov. Brian Kemp made him the board’s first-ever Black leader.
Mosley has called the changes being considered by the board “a good start” for addressing Stone Mountain’s fraught history.
