Stacey Abrams, a Democratic candidate for Georgia's governor, has called for the removal of the iconic Confederate memorial carving on Stone Mountain, just outside of Atlanta. A little further east, in my hometown of Covington, the county Board of Commissioners heard from a handful of citizens who want the Confederate monument at the center of the town square removed or relocated; for what it's worth, our first African-American county commission chair has said that he doesn't want our town to become another Charlottesville.
One voice from the civil rights movement has chimed in on the new trend of erasing the history of the Confederacy. Former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador Andrew Young told reporters on Tuesday that the fight to remove Confederate monuments is not worth having. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted Young:
"I think it’s too costly to refight the Civil War," Young said Wednesday at a press conference in which he and fellow civil rights icon C.T. Vivian endorsed Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell to succeed Kasim Reed as the city’s next mayor. "We have paid too great a price in trying to bring people together."
Young said that he believes that civil rights movements of the past and present have been mistaken in targeting the symbols of even ugly history and should have concentrated more on fighting for issues like economic progress and education. He also reiterated the tried-and-true adage that nonviolent protests are the way to bring about genuine change.