As dozens of state and local police forces, including SWAT teams in armored trucks, watched, the state-run Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) with 200 supporters gathered to celebrate, saying it honored the sacrifices of their ancestors. Atlanta NAACP and other civil rights advocates, some using loudspeakers to try to shout the event, which they see as a salute to the racist legacy of the South. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register “We stand against the celebration of slavery,” said Gerald Griggs, president of the NAACP state, before the march began. “We can not celebrate the biggest monument of white supremacy in the world.” The event, which returned after a two-year hiatus, took place at the foot of a 90-foot-tall relief sculpture depicting three Confederate leaders on horseback engraved on the granite face of Stone Mountain. The Stone Mountain Memorial Association, which manages part of the extensive park about 20 miles northeast of Atlanta, canceled the rally in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the possibility of violence at the event. Stone Mountain has long been a symbol for white defenders. The Ku Klux Klan, a hate group formed by Confederate Army veterans with a history of lynching and terror against blacks, celebrated its mountain rebirth in 1915 with flaming crosses. In recent years, tensions between the two sides “have begun to pose a clear and present threat,” the union said in a statement. However, he said he would let this year’s event take place and welcomed peaceful rallies “from all sides”. Timothy Pilgrim, director of the Georgia Department of Confederate Veterans Affairs, spoke out even as protesters chanted “Ba” and shouted obscenities. “We are here for heritage and history,” Pilgrim told Reuters before the event. “This has nothing to do with the fight, we welcome everyone to our programs.” Martin O’Toole, SCV spokesman and keynote speaker at the event, is also the leader of the Charles Martel Company, a self-proclaimed white nationalist group based in Atlanta. O’Toole said the rally honored those who fought in the American Civil War of 1861-65 on the part of the Confederation, which sought to secede from the Union to determine its fate. “The South remembers its dead,” O’Toole said. “They were the patriots of their time.” Richard Rose, president of the NAACP chapter in Atlanta, said he personally wanted to see the images of General Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson to get away from the mountain. He said it was clear to him that the memorial service was a glorification of slavery. “We have to be there and stand against it,” Rose said. “Silence consents and glorifies a past of slavery and horrific violence against humanity.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Rich McKay in Atlanta. Edited by Mark Heinrich and Daniel Wallis Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
