Join us on Saturday, June 10, at 10 AM to learn the TRUE history behind Stone Mountain.
The Stone Mountain Action Coalition (SMAC) in collaboration with Community Books of Stone Mountain and the Zinn Education Project's Teach Truth Days of Action will celebrate the power of Truth to advance justice and equity Saturday, June 10, at 10 AM. We will meet at Gazebo in the Stone Mountain Village Visitor Center Parking Lot to discuss the ways that neighboring communities have resisted the state's commitment at Stone Mountain Park to glorify men who fought for enslavement or white supremacy. Some of the activists you will hear from include Richard Rose, President of the Atlanta NAACP, who has tirelessly campaigned against the state committing our taxes to honor the Confederacy and Ku Klux Klan, Clint Monroe, a member of the Stone Mountain City council who seeks to uplift voices other than men who fought for white supremacy, and Gabrielle Rogers, a founding member for the Stone Mountain Action Coalition and a tireless activist for the safety and well-being of the citizens of Stone Mountain. You will participate in a read-aloud of the inspiring That Flag by Tameka Fryer Brown and illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. You will leave uplifted with faith that the TRUTH can set us free.
HOW YOU CAN TAKE ACTION
Pledge to Teach the Truth https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/pledge-to-teach-truth
Create a social media profile picture to show solidarity with the movement. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/14WWTpLLBMGkg7iLUAGxaXYK7iIPscjTh/edit#slide=id.p3
Use your social media network to show your support for the national movement [customizable templates & ready to post graphics] or advertise this event [flyers and social media]
Review the Warner Museum’s tentative plan for a Truth Telling museum at Stone Mountain and share your concerns and questions.
Email CEO Bill Stephens, Gov. Kemp and Park Stakeholders
Send your email to: b.stephens@stonemountainpark.org; mosley5544@bellsouth.net; d.studdard@stonemountainpark.org; d.blihovde@stonemountainpark.org; rsmith@smithliss.com; jeff.cown@dnr.ga.gov; CCollier@Ely-Corp.com; mark.williams@gadnr.org; csanders@eastmetrocid.com; cmeadows@nrahq.org; Erica.Rocker-wills@claytoncountyga.gov; Jeff@NorthwestGeorgia.us; Brian.Kemp@georgia.gov; Trey.Kilpatrick@georgia.gov; andrew.isenhour@georgia.gov; mdombrowski@thriveattractions.com; mgeorge@chrco.com; mmetcalf@chrco.com
Sample email message: I am contacting Bill Stephens to thank him and the Stone Mountain Memorial Association for making a public commitment to the Truth. After reviewing Warner Museums’ Proposal, I am excited about the potential to help visitors consider how Stone Mountain became the largest Confederate monument in the world. However, I want to request the following:
Warner Museums should amend its vision statement to emphasize that the state of Georgia was among many Southern states and the organizations that weaponized the memory of the Confederacy to intimidate and resist the civil rights of Black Americans. Although Warner Museums’ proposal acknowledges Georgia responded to Brown v. Board of Education by replacing the state flag and purchasing the park, this should be a key part of the exhibit and not stop with the dedication ceremony to the monument. The exhibit should feature Georgia Code § 50-3-1 and the government’s commitment to strengthen the protection of Confederate monuments in 2019.
Warner Museums coverage of the Ku Klux Klan needs to continue into the 21st century. There are many key episodes between the rise of the second KKK that the current proposal features to the last time the Klan petitioned to burn a cross on the Stone Mountain Memorial Association in 2017.
Warner Museums should also ensure that they have a clear plan to engage with members of the following stakeholder communities: the Muscogee nation, residents of Shermantown, educators, activists, artists, and scholars who have investigated buried histories of Stone Mountain and surrounding communities including convict leasing, interracial solidarity among quarry workers in the 19th century, prison labor in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the use of the Confederate flag to promote the agenda of white supremacy.
It is up to Bill Stephens and the Stone Mountain Memorial Association to instruct Warner Museums that they should not attempt to sanitize the truth to make any potential audience members feel comfortable and that this is a state-funded project that demands community engagement in the entirety of the process.