Barely a week after we moved into
our home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, the Weekend edition of the Atlanta Free
Press arrived at our doorstep. Tucked
within its pages was a full-page ad for a Scottish festival at Stone
Mountain. In oversized letters, the ad's banner read:" Meet Your Clan Members Here ." The “C” vs. “K” notwithstanding, I found the invitation startling.
You may recall the reference to Stone Mountain in Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech: “Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia.” King’s reference alluded to the November 1915 Stone Mountain gathering of the hooded charter members of the Ku Klux Klan to create a new iteration of the Klan.
You may recall the reference to Stone Mountain in Martin Luther King Jr.’s renowned “I Have a Dream” speech: “Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia.” King’s reference alluded to the November 1915 Stone Mountain gathering of the hooded charter members of the Ku Klux Klan to create a new iteration of the Klan.
Stone Mountain is now carved
with the largest bas-relief in the world depicting the three key Confederate figures during the Civil War: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis.I find this quotation by
Jefferson Davis to be especially revealing:
The slaves in their
present condition in the South are comfortable and happy; they see them
advancing in intelligence; they see the kindest relations existing between them
and their masters; they see them provided for in age and sickness, in infancy
and in disability; they see them in useful employment, restrained from the
vicious indulgences to which their inferior nature inclines them.
“Meet your Clan Members Here”
and “Meet your Klan Members Here” seem to overlap with far too much ease in the
South. Our comfortable suburban lifestyle overlays a history of profound evil. I
am reminded of a line from a Yehuda Amichai poem: “And already the demons of my
past are meeting with the demons of my future.”
My sense is that, in the south, the demons of the past have not yet been
expunged, truly recognized or, for that matter, accounted for as demons.
I am intrigued that, just this
year, the state holidays Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee’s birthday
have both been struck from the Georgia State calendar and quietly replaced by the
generic term “State Holiday.” In commenting about the change in holiday
designation, Brian Robinson, a spokesperson for Georgia Governor Nathan Deal,
said the state still intends to celebrate the days even if it doesn’t “spell it
out by name.” “There will be a state holiday on that day,” he said. “Those so
inclined can observe Confederate Memorial Day.”
It is hard not to hear a coy concession to political correctness in his
remarks. Tim Pilgrim, a leader of the
Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said he was concerned
about the shift. “We don’t want Georgia to turn its back on history,” he said.
“They can’t erase and remove our history. That’s unacceptable for us.”[2] Precisely my point.
One would be wrong to draw broad
generalizations about the South and Southerners, where, as in any region, you
will find the best and worst of us. I
have been so fortunate to meet people of extraordinary kindness and warmth here.
Additionally, racism in our nation or the
history of prejudice and social and economic injustice is not unique to the South.
The frightening release of racial hatred during this presidential primary
season speaks of the unfinished business of collective nation building required
in our country. In these past months we
have witnessed the frightening exposure and embracing of our inner demons along
with the concurrent subjugation of our better angels.
Stone Mountain represents a striking and frightening
metaphor for the normalization and glorification of hatred and
racism that is so enmeshed in the history, culture, consciousness and
sub-consciousness of the South, and more broadly, our nation. Approximately
260,000 travelers from across our nation and around the world fly in an out of
Atlanta each day[3]. Most of them will spot Stone Mountain as they
approach or leave Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.
What will they see? What will they think about? Will they see a glorification of an age
marked by profound moral evils or will they think about man’s inhumanity to man
and commit themselves to ensuring that the demons of our past do not also
represent the demons of our future?
