A concert series featuring Black artists called “Soul Fest” that is taking place in a Georgia park covered in Confederate symbols, including a huge carving of Confederate leaders, has drawn the ire of civil rights organizations and other supporters.
The Ku Klux Klan celebrated their rebirth in Stone Mountain Park, a suburb of Atlanta, in 1915. The largest Confederate monument ever created, it is a massive sculpture depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson atop a mountainside that is protected under Georgia law.
Despite falling revenue, the park has recently tried to soften its Confederate heritage and portray itself as a family destination, but civil rights organizations have claimed the efforts fall well short of what is required.
According to Atlanta NAACP President Richard Rose, the “Soul Fest” performance series is a way to “normalize and sanitize” the park’s divisive message.
They are stating, “This is fine. Adjust to it. In a telephone interview on Thursday, he added, “It’s cool.
Two of the bands, according to Rose, were persuaded to stay despite his encouragement to leave because they had contracts and their music brought people together.
In front of this Confederate icon, he added, “music can’t bring people together.”
Thrive Attractions, the park’s management company, did not immediately respond to emails. Earlier this month, the park advertised Soul Fest as a brand-new event that would provide families the opportunity to enjoy a “full day of fun.” On the park’s website, an advertisement for the event included a picture of a happy Black man and Black lady relaxing on a lawn.
The event, which takes place from Thursday night to Sunday night, includes gospel singers, rhythm and blues bands, and Prince tribute acts.
A researcher alongside the Southern Poverty Law Center named Rivka Maizlish called it a “bad faith effort” to disassociate the park from the Confederacy.
Thrive Attractions, the park’s management company, did not immediately respond to emails. Earlier this month, the park advertised Soul Fest as a brand-new event that would provide families the opportunity to enjoy a “full day of fun.” On the park’s website, an advertisement for the event included a picture of a happy Black man and Black lady relaxing on a lawn.
The event, which takes place from Thursday night to Sunday night, includes gospel singers, rhythm and blues bands, and Prince tribute acts.
A researcher alongside the Southern Poverty Law Center named Rivka Maizlish called it a “bad faith effort” to disassociate the park from the Confederacy.
It’s an attempt to keep up this enormous emblem of white supremacy while pretending that the park is for everyone, she continued. Some of the carving’s backers claim that rather than being a celebration of white dominance, it is a monument to their ancestors that fought in the Civil War. Some others wish to preserve it as a symbol of the nation’s dark past.
Numerous tourists and other visitors who want to hike to the top of the mountain, stroll the gardens, or see a light show come to the 3,200-acre (1,295-hectare) park 15 miles (25 kilometers) northeast of downtown Atlanta. The carving was finished in 1972 during opposition to the civil rights movement & desegregation by Georgia along with other Southern states. In 2021, the park’s board decided to remove Confederate flags from a popular walking trail and build a museum exhibit that tells the history of the site & the carving.
The board’s approval of the revisions coincided with a national reckoning on race that resulted in the removal of numerous Confederate monuments in 2020.
The colossal carving, which is 90 feet (27 meters) tall and 190 feet (58 meters) broad, is still kept at the park. Just a few months after a Confederate gathering there, Soul Fest music will be held on a lawn that faces the monument.
Brian Morris, an associate of the Stone Mountain Action Coalition, an advocacy organization that has urged the park to discontinue preserving the carving, said: “It’s just so beyond obnoxious with disgusting and gross that they’re hosting these artists right now and trying to pull in a different audience.”