But they’re making a deliberate choice not to do that.” “They have a lot of power to do a lot of things here. “This is a choice they’re making,” said Sheri Lake, a co-founder of the Stone Mountain Action Coalition, a grassroots activist group that formed last summer. They criticized the failure to consider things like renaming streets and attractions named for Confederate leaders and Klansmen, and continued calling for real conversations about addressing the carving itself. Brian Kemp, who appoints members to the memorial association and holds considerable sway over their actions, to push for “meaningful, positive and transformative changes” at the park. The Stone Mountain Action Coalition and partners with local branches of the NAACP, the National Council of Negro Women and other organizations held a press conference following Monday’s meeting. Explore Who is on the Stone Mountain Memorial Association board?Īll of those considerations represent a significant shift in the way the memorial association has historically approached Confederate imagery at the park, but they are incremental changes - and activists continue to call for more. The memorial association board did discuss another initiative - changing its logo to remove a depiction of the Confederate carving. Several “prominent historians” are being considered for inclusion, Stephens said. He also said that the seven-member committee that’s being formed to guide the creation of the contextualizing museum exhibit is on track to be assembled by July. More information could be available in August, Stephens said. CEO Bill Stephens said afterward that the association was “gathering artist renderings and cost estimates” for relocating the Confederate flag plaza to another area away from the heavily trafficked walk-up trail.

Jinx by Jennifer Estep