Next Confederate flag rally set for Stone Mountain
For the third time since August, and perhaps stinging from a proposal to place a memorial for Martin Luther King Jr. on Stone Mountain, Confederate flag supporters are planning to rally around the flag next month.
Earlier this week officials at Stone Mountain Park received a request for a pro-flag rally to be held on Nov. 14.
Bill Stephens, CEO of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, said there is no formal permitting process required to meet at the park and he has not received any communications from any particular group.
“We did receive one call from a known organizer of a previous rally who informed us that his group was thinking about returning on Nov. 14,” Stephens said. “That call was days ago and we have not heard anything since.”
In August, a mostly white crowd – including members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the neo-Confederate League of the South — spent the day at the park protesting what they believe is an attack on their heritage. The rally came at the height of anti-flag fervor following the Charleston Massacre.
In June, nine churchgoers in Charleston were gunned down by an avowed white supremacist. Their deaths were quickly followed by calls from civil rights groups to remove all Confederate symbols from public property.
Stone Mountain, which has been a symbol of the Confederacy, is seen as both a rallying point for flag supporters and a target for groups wanting to get rid of it.
Last week, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association announced plans to place a memorial on top of the mountain that would honor King. Nothing has been formally approved yet, but the early plans call for a "Freedom Bell," harking back to King's "I Have a Dream," where he said: "let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia."
About the Author
Ernie Suggs is an enterprise reporter covering race and culture for the AJC since 1997. A 1990 graduate of N.C. Central University and a 2009 Harvard University Nieman Fellow, he is also the former vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His obsession with Prince, Spike Lee movies, Hamilton and the New York Yankees is odd.
