This natural formation is popularly known as “the largest piece of free standing granite in the world.” It’s called Stone Mountain, it’s located in the eponymous city of Stone Mountain, GA, and it’s about an hour from where I live. But wait – what’s that carving in the middle?

Meet “President” Jefferson Davis, General Robert E. Lee, and General Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson. And their horses, Blackjack, Traveller, and Little Sorrel. Non-Americans, you didn’t forget a president. Jefferson Davis was the president of the *Confederate* States of America.

Who decided to carve three Confederate “heroes” on a natural landmark remains contentious, but it was funded by United Daughters of the Confederacy & the KKK. The actual business of carving was a mess of a squabble, too. You can read all about it at the museum on the property.

I know this, & there are 13 terraces on the lawn each flying the flags of the 13 states of the confederacy, & it opened on the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination, & many other horrifying tidbits, b/c it’s a popular field trip destination for Georgia public schools.

I also know that the KKK holds one of their biggest annual hate rallies there every October, because, well, I live here and it’s hard to miss.

So when people talk about racism as an American “legacy” long past, they’re lying or misinformed. When they talk about people’s “grandparents” being racist, they’re leaving out that the grandchildren still go to places like Stone Mountain to “learn southern history.”

When they talk about "the importance of states’ rights and state sovereignty” they mean, “we used to own people and the feds made us stop, so f*** federal government forever.”

And until we reckon with *that*? We’re never going to get anywhere.
(Photo: Spiro Agnew addresses crowd, Nixon campaign stop 1970)

What to do about Stone Mountain itself is another question. I don’t know. It’s more complicated than removing a statue. But I’ll never shake the feeling I had at my first visit, age 7, wandering through the ‘museum’ thinking “what kind of alternate history bull pucky *is* this?!”

It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s as if you can *feel* 70+ years of white supremacy activities in the air. But most white Georgians don’t see it that way. To them, it’s a good place for a picnic, and the 4th of July laser show is a family tradition.

That “silent,” innocuous-looking white supremacy, the passive acceptance of a twisted alt-history narrative from 160 years ago, should alarm us at least as much as the overt Nazis. I don’t think anyone has all the answers, but this seems like a good start. https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/building-bridges/2019/11/12/deradicalization-in-the-deep-south/