Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park — once home to the Ku Klux Klan and the site of the largest Confederate carving in the country — has been a point of contention for years.
The 3,200-acre park sees more than 4 million visitors each year, but it’s best known for the large carving of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on the mountainside.
Marcus Patton, who serves on the Stone Mountain Action Coalition, says he’s facing an uphill battle as his group fights for what it calls a “more inclusive park.”
“The thing that troubles me, because I love this place so much, is that many people refer to Stone Mountain. And what they’re talking about is the Confederate aspects of it,” Patton told CBS News.
SMAC is part of the latest push to tweak Georgia law by swapping out language requiring “an appropriate and suitable Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain” for a new ordinance that would educate the public about the natural history of the mountain and its environment.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association, which is the state authorities that manages the Georgia park, has made steps to address the park’s past. An $11 million “Truth Telling” center is slated to open this fall, with exhibits designed to confront what the association calls “warts” of Georgia and southern history.
Georgia native Parker Short posted a viral video calling for the full story to be told throughout the park, saying “Stone Mountain would be best served as a Georgia Civil War, Civil Rights Georgia History museum.”
“This is not a humble monument to the Georgians who, you know, fought in the Civil War,” Parker told CBS News. “This is three generals who commanded an insurrection against the United States carved upon a mountain.”
Patton said that, regardless of politics or southern pride, he’d prefer to lean into the park’s natural beauty, instead of what he calls manmade blemishes.
“It’s a mountain not a message board,” Patton said. “I wish that carving had not been put there.”
Skyler Henry is a CBS News correspondent based in Atlanta. Henry was most recently a correspondent for CBS Newspath in Washington. Since 2019, he has contributed reporting across major news events, including the coronavirus pandemic, the unrest following George Floyd’s murder, and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Henry has won several awards for his work, recognizing his coverage of rap lyrics used in criminal court cases, as well contributions to a deep dive into the racial disparities with agricultural land ownership in the south. Prior to joining CBS News, he was an anchor and reporter for local stations in Baltimore, Maryland, and Macon, Georgia. Henry graduated from Georgia Southern University. He is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Press Photography Association.
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