Stone Mountain is one of those horribly strange places near Atlanta, that when you live there you have conflicted feelings about. The rock itself has a huge Confederate Memorial to Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis on it. I’ve heard people call it “Confederate Mt Rushmore”.
Stone Mountain is a huge quartz dome, 5 miles wide at the circumference of it’s base and it one of the largest rocks of it’s kind. It’s nearly 5 times as high as Niagara Falls. It’s truly a sight to behold. The nature park itself is gorgeous; all the hikes in the area are wonderful, and climbing Stone Mountain is a one of a kind experience, and the views it offers of Georgia and Atlanta are amazing.
But then it’s problematic Confederate history rears it’s head with it’s enormous carvings. And it’s protected by law. When Stacey Abrams was running for Georgia Governor, she wrote “Confederate monuments belong in museums where we can study and reflect on that terrible history, not in places of honor across our state, the visible image of Stone Mountain’s edifice remains a blight on our state and should be removed.” I agree with her. For me, erasing the carving would not be erasing history, but I way of saying we are no longer going to enshrine this sort of idealism.
But regardless of how I feel on the matter, Stone Mountain is a gargantuan reminder of how the state of Georgia has not really moved on from it’s past and how there is still an institutional crisis in America.
Have you ever visited Stone Mountain before?
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