Stone Mountain in Georgia is a state park that has huge figures of confederate leaders carved into the mountain. Funded by the organization known as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it symbolized nostalgia for a racist past and became a rallying place for white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan. The Intercept produced a short 10-minute documentary about the ugly history it represents..
But that use of the mountain is being challenged. I wrote about how on July 4th, over a 1,000 heavily armed members of a black militia group marched to the park and taunted white supremacist to show themselves. They didn’t that day. However a right wing group calling itself Confederate States III% tried to have a rally there last Saturday as a counter show of force but were denied a permit. They then declared that they were going to take to the city’s streets but they were confronted with much larger numbers of anti-racism protestors.
White nationalist demonstrators and an array of young counterprotesters met in an anxious standoff for hours Saturday in Stone Mountain, but largely avoided escalating things into any kind of all-out clash.
The opposing groups were loosely organized on both sides. The white nationalist demonstrators, who appeared to be far outnumbered, were seemingly composed of neo-Confederates and militia groups like the III% Security Force.
On the other side, counterprotesters appeared affiliated under the banners of movements like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, as well as political organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America.
…11Alive’s Maura Sirianni was on scene in the morning, and reported chants of “Go home, racists, go home!” and “Nazis, go home!” from the counterprotesters. At one point the counterprotesters got hold of a Confederate flag and burned it.
“Go home, racists, go home!” Members of BLM, Antifa and independents chant during protest in the town of Stone Mountain @11AliveNews pic.twitter.com/Rr75W36hrv
— Maura Sirianni 11Alive (@MauraSirianni) August 15, 2020
As a show of force by white nationalists in response to the challenge thrown down by the black militia group on July 4th, this appeared to have been a total bust.
While the number of supremacists at this rally was low, the past few years have demonstrated conclusively that these “values” are very much alive and well in the US. It’s just that they hide behind a smile instead of a white sheet.