Board changes Stone Mountain image, Cobb Chair Cupid embraces hateful history
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Stone Mountain is about a 30-minute drive from South Cobb and is out of the normal coverage area for SPOTLIGHT South Cobb News, however what is going on there has direct implications here in Cobb County, which cannot be ignored.
For decades, Stone Mountain served as the base for hate in Georgia. Replete with Confederate imagery, including a monument of Southern generals carved into the north face of a mountain, flags, and other symbols, the area has long courted controversy for being the “meet up spot” for hate and the home of the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group that terrorized and killed blacks. For years, politicians and other leaders have ignored the calls from those in the community who believe that this type of hate should not be tolerated in our society.
Gov. Brian Kemp recently appointed Rev Reverend Abraham Mosley Chairman of the Stone Mountain Memorial Associations Board of Directors. Within a few weeks, he and his board have come back with recommendations on how to change this ugly history and its narrative of hate.
While the good Rev. Mosley is doing the work to our east, right here in our community of Mableton, Cobb Chair Lisa Cupid is doing the opposite. The Chair is celebrating hateful hate by establishing parks and other memorials for the civil war and the confederacy. Yes, the civil war that was fought to keep blacks enslaved and held as property. With her three votes in her right pocket, Cupid has placed this ugly stain onto our diverse community. Why? We did not ask for that. What we asked for was economic development and affordable housing. Instead, she took our taxpayer dollars to make way for a place for the civil war enthusiast and other hate groups to gather. During their single meeting on this subject a few weeks ago, which they failed to share with the community, one of the two civil war preservationists in the room stepped to the microphone before Cupid and her votes and said the following:
“Confederate things these days are toxic—we don’t have that situation here,” said Charlie Crawford of the Georgia Battlefields Association.
Sorry Charlie, but we do have that situation here, we do see that as toxic, and we, like others around the country, are demanding that these hateful things be taken down, not celebrated or memorialized.
Everyone, including those from the preservationist group, knows that placing these hateful things in communities in the year 2021 is not welcomed nor celebrated. Not Chair Cupid as she led the vote to approve her latest civil war park and never thought twice about how that would impact our community, a community she recently abandoned for a Vining’s zip code.
A report released earlier this year by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center found that 168 Confederate symbols were removed across the United States in 2020, virtually all of them following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. In the wake of George Floyd’s death Lisa Cupid, a Black woman, has honored the civil war and the confederacy with two parks in their memory placed in our community.
I couldn’t make this up even if I tried.
To add insult on top of injury, the preservationist group wants Cupid and her three votes to designate funding to the tune of $2.5 million for the park. These are our tax dollars going to fund things that we do not want in our community. Where is out economic development? Where are are out affordable homes?
It is time to tell Lisa Cupid that we do not want Hateful History celebrated in Mableton.
If you agree that hate has no home in South Cobb, send an email or call Chair Lisa Cupid and demand that she and her board not use our taxpayer dollars to create parks or monuments to honor those who fought in the racist Civil War to keep blacks enslaved.
Chair Lisa Cupid
(770) 528-3305
(770) 528-2606 (Fax)
