A more creative person (than me) would figure out a way to turn all this around on itself by making the park a pathway to progress and inclusion. Put Stone Mountain as a starting point from a regrettable, deplorable past
My creative idea would be to construct two more murals: The Confederate mural would remain, and it would be the middle one.
The first mural would be, PERHAPS, the Boston Tea Party. After all, Georgia was part of the original 13 states...the southernmost of them. The last mural would, PERHAPS, be a map of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii.
I could even argue for FOUR murals, with the Confederate one being the third. The first mural would be a commemoration of the Native Americans, who were there first, perhaps depicting a pre-Columbian settlement with teepees, a sweat lodge, a tomahawk, an arrowhead, a fire, etc. The content of that first mural should be determined by getting ideas from the Cherokee Nation and other tribes that were displaced. Putting up an "Indian" mural, with contents being entirely decided only by white man, would not be a good idea.
This would put the Confederacy **IN CONTEXT** - which is something that is NEVER done by those who celebrate it as nothing more than an excuse to celebrate racism and the dominance of white MEN in society. The Confederate States of America is indeed part of Georgia's history, and it does "deserve" some representation...but let's do it in context for a real change, please. ALL existing Confederate monuments and memorials, I believe, exist entirely by themselves with no context whatsoever.
Let's first rename all the places named after Confederate leaders, especially military bases. What country names military bases after the enenmy?
RIGHT ON! Even some people in Africa, yes, UNDERSTAND how these names are a "bad idea."
Those military installations are inside the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The people represented by these names, WENT TO WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES - indeed more of an "enemy" than the USSR, "Red China," North Korea, Japan, England, etc. have ever been. It's one of only three wars that have been continuously waged on USA soil. (I don't include World War II because that was, with the exception of Midway Island, was fought on US soil for only one day.) The Mexican War, the decades-long war on Native Americans, and the Civil War.
If you airbrush history, good or bad, people will forget and that will lead to the same mistakes happening again.
By constantly talking, studying the holocaust we, hopefully, spot the trends beforehand and stop it happening again.
There are several recent examples where those trends have been ignored and genocide has occurred. Myanmar is the most recent example but the Middle East has several examples
Or, conversely, refusing to airbrush history and
celebrating some of the more dire aspects of history, can GUARANTEE that very bad history repeats itself.
It is NO ACCIDENT that the President, at Mt. Rushmore over the weekend, referred to the "agitators, leftists" etc. as being engaged in a "CULTURAL REVOLUTION." That was the name of the thing that happened in China, during my younger years, under"Chairman Mao." He is comparing it to a horrific movement that killed more people than the Holocaust, and wiped out a LOT of the *BEST* and most benign aspects of history in that country.
