AP
ATLANTA (AP) — Civil rights groups and other advocates denounced a concert series with Black performers dubbed “Soul Fest” that is being held at a Georgia park replete with Confederate imagery, including a giant carving of Confederate leaders.
Stone Mountain Park just outside Atlanta is where the Ku Klux Klan marked its rebirth in 1915. Its colossal, mountainside sculpture of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson is the largest Confederate monument ever crafted and has special protection enshrined in Georgia law.
The park has taken steps in recent years to try to soften its Confederate legacy and promote itself as a family site amid declining revenue, but civil rights groups have said the moves fall way short of what’s needed.
The “Soul Fest” concert series is a way to “normalize and sanitize” the hateful message of the park, said Atlanta NAACP President Richard Rose.
The “Soul Fest” concert series is a way to “normalize and sanitize” the hateful message of the park, said Atlanta NAACP President Richard Rose.
The event, which runs from Thursday night through Sunday night, features rhythm and blues groups, a gospel singer and a Prince cover band.
It’s a “bad faith effort” to distance the park from the Confederacy, said Rivka Maizlish, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“It’s an effort to pretend that the park is for everyone while still maintaining this massive symbol of white supremacy,” she said. Some supporters of the carving say it is a tribute to their ancestors who fought in the Civil War, not a celebration of white power. Others want to keep it as a reminder of the country’s ugly past.
The 3,200-acre (1,295-hectare) park about 15 miles (25 kilometers) northeast of downtown Atlanta also attracts large numbers of tourists and other visitors interested in hiking to the top of the mountain, walking the grounds or seeing a light show. In 2021, the park’s board voted to relocate Confederate flags from a busy walking trail and create a museum exhibit that relates the history of the site and the carving, which was completed in 1972 amid resistance to the civil rights movement and desegregation by Georgia and other Southern states.