More than 100 armed protesters dressed in black marched to Stone Mountain Park in Georgia to stand before the Confederate carving as part of a demonstration against racism.
The group, which calls themselves the Not F—ing Around Coalition, said it wanted to do a demonstration on Saturday in front of the carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson because members wanted to notify white supremacists that they will go anywhere, including the “birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan,” to stop racism. The group also demanded that the carving be removed.
“It’s only appropriate that we go to the source,” said one demonstrator. “For all y’all out here who don’t know, this is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. This is where they were reborn after they were destroyed. Everything you’ve been seeing, police, discrimination in housing, f—ed up education, f—ed up banking system, f—ed up politics, are all tied to the KKK. If you don’t believe that, you don’t know shit about this country.”
“So what we are going to do. We are going to pay a visit to their home. Because we ain’t talking to the police no more. They just work for the KKK. […] I want the heart of the Ku Klux Klan to hear me no matter where the f— you are,” he said. “I’m in your house. Where you at? You made a threat. We don’t threaten. We don’t scare because we don’t care. You threaten us, we’re gonna threaten you. You said you would start shooting black people at 8 o’clock, we gonna start shooting white people at 8:05.”
The protesters left the park with an escort from the police. The officers said that they did not have any issues with the protesters.
“It’s a public park, state park,” said Stone Mountain Memorial Association spokesman John Bankhead. “We have these protests on both sides of the issue from time to time. We respect people’s first amendment rights to exercise those rights.”
“We understand the sensitivity of the issues here at the park and the dark past so we respect that and allow them to come in,” he said. “As long as it’s peaceful, which it has been, then that’s fine.”
The demonstrations at Stone Mountain were part of larger, nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis.
