chapter 560
June 19, 2020
Stone Mountain
Ku Klux Klan territory
Stone Mountain, Georgia is the largest Bas-relief carved sculpture on the largest granite outcropping in the world and Georgia's #1 tourist attraction. The three main characters of the Confederacy are displayed left to right Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. If Black Lives Matters really wants to hit the epitome of old time slavery symbology and white supremacy this is it. My civilian co-worker from the Corps of Engineers really wanted me to see this so we drove up near Atlanta one weekend for it. He had always been harping the confederate southern philosophy and wanted to convert me. I liked him as a person but his beliefs were slanted racial but he wouldn't come out and though he wouldn't say he was KKK he knew all about it. He wouldn't let me get him in the picture on this trip and I suspected he didn't want to be tagged as a member.
As we rode up the cable car I snapped this pic. Would have walked up the path but he was not in shape for that. Note the truck at the bottom. I had made a note about the torches used during the carving.
On top of the mountain here is where the 20th Century KKK was created. It was at this spot on November 28, 1915 that the KKK was reborn. The Second Imperial Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan William Simmons conducted a ceremony with a sword, bible, and by burning a cross in front of 15 would be members along with 2 original KKK knights. They had to climb up there as it was just a plain granite mountain at that time. The Venable family owned the mountain. James Venable was part of second KKK formation and had risen to rank of Imperial Klonsel of the Klans. When I was there he had dropped out down to some other white supremest group. His grandfather was a member of the original 1865 first gen KKK.
It's worth watching a 15 minute video of the history of the KKK. The moderator is not an "expert" or "historian" but the content is accurate and is told in a brief and entertaining way. The height of the movement included 4 million members nationwide with a massive march of 30,000 in front of the White House in 1925. Today's talk of white supremacy just seems so minimally significant in comparison.
It's amazing to watch the hour long 1965 CBS Special on the Klan. If you want to know what real bigotry and racism is those were the times I grew up in but never experienced the fringe groups first hand.
I snapped the chain gang out the window of my '55 Chev one day as I explored in 1969. Drove down Tobacco Road literally a few miles south of the house I later rented. After the Civil War slavery was abolished but the practice of convict leasing was a common practice of slavery by another name. White supremacists would rent prisoners out to work the fields, dig coal, etc. These guys seemed to be merely clearing weeds along the road right of way but it was a haunting reminder of the tradition that did not vanish until the 1920's and 30's.
There are literally more blacks in the "chains of prison" today than there ever were in the "chains of slavery" in the old days. The power to control their own destiny is much more in their own hands today.
A fellow MP Humphrey Godfrey and I used to ride around looking for interesting things. I imagine the abandon shack was for sharecroppers during the Jim Crow days following reconstruction after the Civil War. Note the Jesus Red Cross on white. Those signs were all over but the Klan leaned in that direction. There were many other shacks like this but still occupied by blacks then and probably still now.
Inside it had a very earthy feel. I could just imagine families of sharecroppers crammed in there using the fire for heat and cooking their meals.
Cotton was King in the south. Cotton Plantations and rice and sugar brought enormous wealth to the South because of the cheap slave labor. King Cotton was a phrase they used before the Civil War to imply the North as well as Europe would not invade because they were dependent upon it for textiles. They were wrong. This mill we discovered in Wrens Georgia on one excursion a half hour south of Augusta. The Sibley Mill in Augusta became a prominent cotton business after the war but was designed as the gun powder factory for the Confederacy. It was spared from destruction by General Sherman's March to the Sea because it was irrelevant by that time.
As part of my duties at the Fort Gordon Corps of Engineers I surveyed and documented the graveyards on our base reservation. These existed before the Army base was created in 1941. I remember we were careful to not walk around ranges that might have remnants of live unexploded shells. Always wondered if Mattie Lou Hatcher 1879-1933 was a freed slave. Just found a record and picture of her with a much more grand recent Marble marker for her.
A more in depth story of this Leitner Cemetery is now available. We documented it as cemetery #30 not knowing the history. Turns out I photographed the oldest Confederate monument in the South, how was I to know. ERECTED in the memory of our BOYS IN GRAY by the LINWOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL JUNE 1866. Family of the school's Superintendent was a large plantation owner. Would the BLM fringe that calls for removal of the Confederate monument in Arlington Cemetery also want this one removed?
This settlement was previously know as Old Pinetucky before the Government took the lands for the construction of Camp Gordon to assist our WW2 effort. I took three pictures at the cemetery. Turns out I captured the namesake of this family plot. Henry Leitner 1892. The Leitner family owned a grist mill here and Leitner Lake is now a recreation area. I worked on drainage plans for pipes on the dam there.
German POWs from WW1 were kept at camps in the US and used for labor (slave-like). Some were kept for their lifetimes. Some are buried here. Wondering if we should pay Germans reparations.
One civilian buried here died by State electrocution a result of killing a Federal Agent during prohibition.
More history of the creation of Stone Mountain
The story of Stone Mountain and the KKK might best be summarized in this video.
The Venable Brothers were stone quarry entrepreneurs and had bought the whole 5 mile wide granite mountain in 1887. They were apparently KKK sympathizers and granted a lifetime easement to the KKK to hold celebrations on the mountain.
In 1915 the Birth of a Nation novel and movie about the Klansmen was sparking emotions in Dixieland. A white Jew and Cornell Mechanical Engineer Leo Frank was lynched in August of that year because his death sentence had been commuted. Those were the flash points leading up to that first cross burning on Stone Mountain.
The UDC United Daughters of the Confederacy video was formed in 1894 to spread propaganda (honor their dead) and influence the written history of the Civil War. They were responsible for a great many statues and monuments primarily throughout the south.
In 1916 Helen Plane was a local charter member who contacted Gutzon Borglum of Mount Rushmore and KKK fame as sculptor.
On 4/14/1965 one hundred years to the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated Stone Mountain was officially opened. Symbolic or coincidence?
The State of Georgia took over control of the mountain in 1963 but the final carving was not completed until 1973 a year after I visited.
The Klan causes trouble there sporadicly. Humorously one Klan guy wears shoes that honor the Black Man.
I forgot what a sense of humor Muhammad Ali had in 1977.
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