Confederate Group Met With Counterprotest In Stone Mountain
Source: DANIEL SLIM / Getty
Stone Mountain Park’s milkshake continues to bring all the white nationalists to the yard.
On Saturday, around 200 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans gathered at the Georgia park to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. But a funny thing happens when white people try to hold an “I heart slavery” convention in a city that’s damn near 80 percent Black—counter-protesters show up and ruin all the white supremacist fun.
About 200 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans gathered at Stone Mountain Saturday for an observation of Confederate Memorial Day. In opposition, a little more than 100 counterprotesters gathered in front of the carving of Confederate leaders: https://t.co/tkHt1OVeou pic.twitter.com/NgokusM5zg
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution (@ajc) May 2, 2022
According to AL.com, when the SCV crowd was gathered in front of the racist eyesore that is Stone Mountain Park’s big-a** rock carving of Confederate leaders, more than 100 counterprotesters showed up to shout and drown out the speaker at the Klan-like “bring back negroes in chains” rally.
“These protesters are against our Christian faith. They are anti-Christ,” SCV member Kenneth Buggay said after he tried to lead a prayer over the commotion. “We have been fighting this war since 1861. We will be victorious.”
Riiiiiight—it was the group’s “Christian faith” that the counterprotesters were against, not the fact that a mob of white southerners came to celebrate the leaders of a movement that demonstrably existed almost entirely to preserve the institution of chattel slavery.
From AL.com:
The Confederate rally has been the target of controversy since the Stone Mountain Memorial Association approved the SCV’s permit application in March. The mountain and surrounding park are enshrined in state law as a memorial to the failed Confederacy despite having no direct connection to the Civil War.
“Nothing historic with regard to the Civil War happened at this park,” Gerald Griggs, Atlanta attorney and president of the Georgia branch of the NAACP, said Saturday. “So there’s no need to memorialize traitors to the American democracy.”
Of course, SCV is yet another group of delusional whites who don’t know any history not taught by other delusional whites. So, they pretend the Confederacy was about state rights and adhere to the “Lost Cause” myth surrounding the Civil War. And they claim they’re not racist and that they’re celebrating their heritage, not the five-year treason-o-thon that existed because the thought of Black people roaming around free got white people’s Klan-taloons all in a bunch.
But if the SCV isn’t a white supremacist group, why does it have so many white supremacists speaking at and attending their rally?
“We are winners” counterprotestors chant upon arriving at the Sons of Confederate Veterans Memorial Day celebration at Stone Mountain Park. pic.twitter.com/NH6Lj3jK2f
— Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon (@alemzs) April 30, 2022
Marietta attorney Martin O’Toole was reportedly a keynote speaker at the “Make America A Slave Nation Again” concert.
More from AL.com:
O’Toole has deep and long-standing ties to white supremacists. O’Toole is on the board of the Charles Martel Society, which publishes a racist pseudo-academic journal with articles questioning the Holocaust and promoting disreputable theories about the genetic intelligence of Black people. Critics say the publication provides academic cover for white nationalism.
While speaking at the event, O’Toole suggested to his audience that they adopt a strategy of “internal exile,” and remove themselves from modern society by only associating “with like-minded persons.” (Oh no, please don’t go. What will we do if all the conservative whites formed their own Wa-Klan-da and we never saw or heard from them again?)
“Do not be part of the modern culture,” he said. “Do not trust your children’s minds to strange thoughts and strange people.” He then referred to public schools as “holding cells” and diversity and inclusion as “indoctrination.” (Shocking, right?)
The event was also attended by white nationalist attorney Sam Dickson, who was accompanied by proud white nationalist Randy Sheppard, who reportedly said this during the so-called not racist rally.
“There are more of us than you think, people who think like us. White nationalists, pro-Confederate, pro-white.”
Nah, bro—we know how many of you there are. That’s why you can’t hold a rally in Stone Mountain without ant-racists coming to shut you down.
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