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FYI bryantm the word N****r was commonly used in the Lily White community where I grew up way before the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's. A N****R was a lazy, good for nothing, thief, drunk etc no matter what the Color of his skin.
Most of the people I know now that fit the 1950's definition of N****R now call them selves Liberals.
Dude...shut up. You clearly have no idea what a real life liberal is like, if that's the best analogy you can come with. is Nebraska boring today? why are you here?
Also you give me the perfect reason to use some of my latest graphics. Thanks for coming in here, sh*tting on the floor, and dumbing down what was a pretty interesting grown-ups conversation.
I can understand the parents and grandparents who lived the war. But it is like those of you descended from confederates don't understand that those symbols and the war was "lived" as well by formerly enslaved persons and their progeny. Formerly enslaved persons were also denied economic and educational advancement for nearly 100 years after the end of the Civil War by your grandparents and parents and a complacent government.
When we are speaking of Stone Mountain and its use as a symbol, one has to consider that it was indeed carved as a reaction to desegregation attempts by civil rights workers, both black and white and in between and was funded and supported in part by your parents and grandparents to be used as a symbol of white supremacy and of the south's rebellion against integration efforts and equal opportunity for black southerners.
Contrary to what many don't acknowledge, especially those who defend confederates is that there were black southerners. I am black and I have ancestors who also fought in the Civil War. So does my husband whose family is from GA. The war and the Union victory did provide some suffering for white southerners, but black southerners were already suffering and after Reconstruction they were terrorized, disrespected, their dignity was not acknowledged, they were considered sub human, they were told where they could live, where they could go to school, they had to show "respect" to whites like your grandparents and parents or face punishment. They were rounded up and put on chain gangs. They had no protection from the law or our government or from your grandparents and great grandparents and their intense racism and white superiority mindsets.
There are NO monuments to them like Stone Mountain. It kind of irks me, I'll admit when I see explanations like that above. Like the white suffering, which for the most part was temporary and not all encompassing on the lives of those people like it was for blacks (at least they had the protection of the law and a society that saw them as human beings) is so important that it needs all these monuments and reminders.
Does GA have a monument for black servants who were forced to go to war with their owners? Does GA have a monument for all the people who were lynched or forced into chain gangs? Does GA have a monument for black people who were executed without fair trial? Does GA have a monument for people whose land was stolen from them by whites who didn't like to see blacks "get out of their place" or have any sort of economic prospects?
No they don't have these things as far as I know and if they do, they are NOTHING like the grandeur that is Stone Mountain. And they don't because the descendants of Confederates don't see the suffering of black Georgians as worthy of a monument like they do their white ancestors who fought primarily to keep black Georgians in a subordinate position.
Get Tyler Perry to help start the funding for one. Maybe there's a spot on Arabia Mountain a few miles away.
Or talk to the Atlanta History Museum about starting an exhibit (I think the Civil Rights Museum is more about modern times-at least based on its title and MLK definitely is).
Maybe a tie-in to their new Cyclorama exhibit (although funding may be tied up).
I can understand the parents and grandparents who lived the war. But it is like those of you descended from confederates don't understand that those symbols and the war was "lived" as well by formerly enslaved persons and their progeny. Formerly enslaved persons were also denied economic and educational advancement for nearly 100 years after the end of the Civil War by your grandparents and parents and a complacent government.
When we are speaking of Stone Mountain and its use as a symbol, one has to consider that it was indeed carved as a reaction to desegregation attempts by civil rights workers, both black and white and in between and was funded and supported in part by your parents and grandparents to be used as a symbol of white supremacy and of the south's rebellion against integration efforts and equal opportunity for black southerners.
Did you talk to the people who did it?
Clearly some things were done for that reason. But to ascribe everything in that era to that motivation is not realistic. It was the 100 year centennial of the war. There were events during the 60s noting that.
Now I didn't talk to the people who finished the Memorial either, so I don't know what was in their head. But I haven't seen anything supporting that it was for the purpose you described. It could have been southern pride. It could have been looking for an economic tourist asset. It could have been asthetic-that partially completed one had to have been a mess. I was too young to remember what it was like then. It could have been as part of the centennial commemorations. It could have been that before that Georgia was simply too poor to complete it. Funding dried up with the Great Depression.
I understand why Black people feel as they do about some of these symbols. But I have a very different feeling about them. I'm a southerner, but so far as I know I only have 1 ancestor who fought in the war and he fought for the north. I doubt any of my ancestors had slaves. I know none of them had slaves in the 1800s.
Get Tyler Perry to help start the funding for one. Maybe there's a spot on Arabia Mountain a few miles away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
Or talk to the Atlanta History Museum about starting an exhibit (I think the Civil Rights Museum is more about modern times-at least based on its title and MLK definitely is).
Maybe a tie-in to their new Cyclorama exhibit (although funding may be tied up).
The actual state of GA bought Stone Mountain and maintained it for many years.
Why can't the state do the same for all of the unsung heroism of its black citizens? Why do only black people have to help fund it?
And FWIW, Stone Mountain is indeed a monument to the Confederacy and white supremacy. The AHM, is a great organization and they do acknowledge the non-white Confederate suffering in the state of GA and the south in general already. But they are not a prominent symbol of metro Atlanta like Stone Mountain is.
There is no public monument to the suffering of black Georgians before, during, or immediately following the Civil War, nor during the Jim Crow period.
It is great that Civil Rights is represented, but the Civil Rights movement actually began way before 1950 and you rarely hear about the activities of those trail blazers. GA, after MS had the most lynchings in the USA. IMO, they really should devote some public money to recognizing lynching victims and their families - all of which were not black either. The modern Civil Rights Movement has is base in the "anti-lynching movement" of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their activities are very much worth recognition and IMO should be installed near or in the parks/monuments where Confederates are placed.
But the gist of my comment to you prior was the fact that white Confederates' suffering is not more important than black Georgians and formerly enslaved persons suffering. Confederates have their memorials, and I'm okay with that due to me being heavily interested and involved in research pertaining to history, especially of the antebellum south at the moment but IMO, these people should not be revered as heroes or anyone worth any sort of honor. I am a descendant of both slaves and free persons of color and to be a decent researcher into the lives of my ancestors, I have had to delve deeply into various plantation records and court cases that most people don't really pay attention to. I recently found my 4th great grandfather listed in the will of his owner. The owner's son died in the war and was a Confederate and the son has lots of things written about him in that local community and his name is on a memorial in the area because of his death and suffering. His slaves suffered too for their entire lives and to me it is both interesting and angering that people can so easily praise a Confederate and not even look to see what the lives of his slaves were like before or after the war. I am forced to know a lot about these sons and daughters of the Confederacy due to the fact that they are the key to me finding out about my own ancestors. So when people speak of them, I see another side due to the records they left. And I know that these people, all of the people in the past were citizens of a particular time and place, but that is not excuse to continue to praise them when we know better in the present time and place.
Another aside, but I had a college professor whose family farm was stolen from them due to a lack of legal protection by the state of GA. Across the country, an estimated 24000 acres of land was stolen either via violence or conniving legal practices from black people in the south.
My professor's family sued for decades to get their land back as they were left homeless and destitute after the theft of their land in the 1940s in south GA. They eventually won the case in the early 2000s!!! And the ruling, and I remember it because my professor was upset about it was that their family were indeed scammed out of their land, but the white man's son who had stolen the land now had a vested interest in it and they didn't want to return the land to her family because it would be a "financial hardship" on the white farmer....As if the hardships faced by the black family who were left destitute were not important at all. The black family won a monetary settlement even though what they really wanted was their land back.
These sorts of stories are not unusual for black families in the south. No one acknowledges the things they went through as late as the 1960s and 1970s with unjust representation and protection of the law, but we can put state money into confederate monuments like Stone Mountain at that time where all GA citizens contributed, not just white descendants of confederates.
The actual state of GA bought Stone Mountain and maintained it for many years.
Why can't the state do the same for all of the unsung heroism of its black citizens? Why do only black people have to help fund it?
And FWIW, Stone Mountain is indeed a monument to the Confederacy and white supremacy. The AHM, is a great organization and they do acknowledge the non-white Confederate suffering in the state of GA and the south in general already. But they are not a prominent symbol of metro Atlanta like Stone Mountain is.
There is no public monument to the suffering of black Georgians before, during, or immediately following the Civil War, nor during the Jim Crow period.
It is great that Civil Rights is represented, but the Civil Rights movement actually began way before 1950 and you rarely hear about the activities of those trail blazers. GA, after MS had the most lynchings in the USA. IMO, they really should devote some public money to recognizing lynching victims and their families - all of which were not black either. The modern Civil Rights Movement has is base in the "anti-lynching movement" of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their activities are very much worth recognition and IMO should be installed near or in the parks/monuments where Confederates are placed.
But the gist of my comment to you prior was the fact that white Confederates' suffering is not more important than black Georgians and formerly enslaved persons suffering. Confederates have their memorials, and I'm okay with that due to me being heavily interested and involved in research pertaining to history, especially of the antebellum south at the moment but IMO, these people should not be revered as heroes or anyone worth any sort of honor. I am a descendant of both slaves and free persons of color and to be a decent researcher into the lives of my ancestors, I have had to delve deeply into various plantation records and court cases that most people don't really pay attention to. I recently found my 4th great grandfather listed in the will of his owner. The owner's son died in the war and was a Confederate and the son has lots of things written about him in that local community and his name is on a memorial in the area because of his death and suffering. His slaves suffered too for their entire lives and to me it is both interesting and angering that people can so easily praise a Confederate and not even look to see what the lives of his slaves were like before or after the war. I am forced to know a lot about these sons and daughters of the Confederacy due to the fact that they are the key to me finding out about my own ancestors. So when people speak of them, I see another side due to the records they left. And I know that these people, all of the people in the past were citizens of a particular time and place, but that is not excuse to continue to praise them when we know better in the present time and place.
Sounds like you have done a lot of hard work and searching. And would have some good stories to help with an exhibit.
Interestingly, the US government helped contribute to the original carving according to Wiki. They issued commemorative 50 cent coins. They wouldn't allow Jeff Davis on the coins, but did put Lee and Jackson on the coins.
I do not see Stone Mountain being altered unless Herschend Family Entertainment gets compensated well enough for the alteration and major changes in the laser show.
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