When a person stands alone with a sign or is shouting a message for everyone to hear, they are considered crazy. Most people will not stop to listen to them. Instead they will try to avoid eye contact or look away from the overzealous shouting nut with a sign. It is an awkward situation to say the least. For the last few years, working on the Stone Mountain Park project has led me to feel like that crazy person with a sign held out trying to share a message that is not being heard. It is exhausting to be the lone crazy person in a crowd and being the lone crazy person on social media doesn't feel much different.
Not that I think I am crazy.
Nope, I am perfectly sane....well as sane as the next guy.
But good news, I am no longer a single voice shouting in the crowd. This last week I joined the Stone Mountain Action Coalition (SMAC). It is such a relief to be working with people who want the same kind of progress and change at Stone Mountain Park that I do. SMAC is a group made up of many other different organizations and people. All of the people in SMAC think that Stone Mountain Park's Confederate theme needs to change. They do love the park, its nature elements, and many of the attractions there though. They want to preserve the good parts of this Georgia State park, but repurpose it so that its theme is one everyone in the state of Georgia will love and be proud of.
Joining SMAC has helped me realize the power of a group. Sometimes as mortals we think of power or strength on an individual basis. Is this person strong enough to lift this weight? Are they strong enough to endure this challenge? It is almost as if strength is an individual trait, but there is also strength and power in a group.
During the civil rights era there were many people who protested on an individual basis. For example, we often talk about Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat but she was not the first black person who refused to give up their seat for a white person. A young woman by the name of Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat and was arrested 9 months before Rosa Parks did the same thing.
So, why is Rosa Parks a household name and Claudette Colvin is not? Because of the power of a group. Claudette Colvin was one (in the eyes of others) crazy teenager who wouldn't give up her seat. People did not respect her because of her age and her loud personality. Rosa Parks on the other hand was a quiet and respected member of the community. She was a civil rights activist and because of her position in the community other civil rights activists followed her example. Civil rights leaders used Rosa Parks as a person to follow and created a movement to boycott the buses. The lack of revenue and court cases that followed made it possible for change in the United States and the buses to take down their segregation signs and laws were changed.
Today, it is not any different. One crazy person doing something to cause change is not going to make a difference. We need other people to join the group and to stand up against symbols of racism. To fight the continued battle for equality and justice. Today on Instagram Martin Luther King Jr's daughter, Bernice King, shared that her father defined justice as "Love correcting everything that stands against love."
To understand why the Confederate Memorial carving on Stone Mountain stands against love, you need to understand a little about the history. For an infographic timeline of the carving's history click here. Although the idea for the memorial originates in 1914, Stone Mountain was not purchased by the state of Georgia until 1958. This is just four years after the Brown vs. Board of Education case ruled segregation in the schools illegal. When Governor Marvin Griffith bought the land, he wrote into Georgia laws that the land would be a confederate memorial. Why would the governor of Georgia want to create a monument to the Confederacy during the Civil Rights era?
One year after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech - a speech that might not be as popular today if there was not such a large group in attendance - the carving began on Stone Mountain. So, when Martin Luther King Jr. said in that same speech that he wanted "freedom to ring from Stone Mountain," the state responded by raising Confederate flags and carving a Confederate monument.
How can love correct this affront against love and obvious act of racism? We can work together, unite as a group and say that we will not allow symbols of racism to stand. That is not the message we want for our children or our children's children. The Confederate Memorial was not created merely out of ancestral pride. It was created as a protest against integration. A protest that I cannot and will never support.
