Stone Mountain Park moves Confederate flags
Four Confederate flags that flew for about 60 years at the base of a popular Stone Mountain Park walkup trail have been moved ahead of the busy Memorial Day weekend.
The flags were transferred Tuesday within the Stone Mountain site to Valor Park, an alcove at the base of a giant carving of Confederate leaders in granite on the mountain’s northern face. The carving is not visible from the base of the trail, and now, neither are the flags.
“This is a great way to start the weekend,” said Brian Morris, a member of the Stone Mountain Action Coalition, which has pushed for reforms at the park and protested Confederate Memorial Day ceremonies there.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association, the state authority that manages the park, decided to move the flags two years ago and since then has been criticized for the delay. Bill Stephens, the association’s CEO, said it took some time to prepare the area where the flags were relocated. The move had also been on hold while the association switched private management partners for the park’s attractions, hotels and conference centers.
“We just completed the place where we’re going to relocate them to,” Stephens said. “The fact that it happened during Memorial Day week is not a negative.”
More than 3 million people visit Stone Mountain Park every year, and traffic spikes during the patriotic holidays, Stephens said.
The Confederate flags, donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, went up in the early 1960s. A United States flag and two Georgia flags still fly at the head of the walkup trail.
Some hikers Thursday said there seemed to be fewer flags than before but that they’d never paid much attention.
“The Confederate flag was bringing too much unwanted attention to the owners of the mountain,” said Zamir Freeman, 20, after hiking with his friend Karisma Pollnitz, 20.
In the two days after the flags were moved, Stephens said he only received one complaint, from a woman who seemed to understand the change by the end of their conversation.
A state law that protects Confederate monuments prevents the flags from being removed entirely but says they can be moved to an equally prominent location. The memorial association thinks Valor Park qualifies. It keeps the flags with other Confederate tributes visitors view by choice while clearing them from a place where many people, especially those who come just to hike, were offended by their presence.
“This relocation will position the Confederate Flag Plaza in a space dedicated to Confederate War dead, with other existing statuary in Valor Memorial Park and gardens in a place of similar prominence to their prior location,” the association said in a statement.
Valor Park, the new location, predates the flags. It contains a statue of an unnamed Confederate soldier with a broken sword. The word “valor” is carved on a bench. Another engraved quote from Robert E. Lee reads: “There is a true glory and a true honor: The glory of duty done — the honor of the integrity of principle.”
People who walk along Memorial Lawn to view the carving can access Valor Park. The lawn also contains the flags of every Confederate state.