APRIL 23RD, 2016
The Ku Klux Klan and white nationalists are holding a white power march on Stone Mountain. On the same evening, a racist concert gathering will be held at a yet to be disclosed location. We are coordinating a mass gathering on Stone Mountain to shut down the march and disrupt further white supremacist efforts.
We are mobilizing locally and nationally for a show of anti-racist power on April 23rd at Stone Mountain. Our gathering time and location will be announced closer to the date—keep an eye out for updates.
OUR PRINCIPLES ARE:
- Our solidarity is grounded in a shared opposition to white supremacy. In our coordinating efforts, we will not tolerate behavior that perpetuates the oppression of marginalized people.
- Police, politicians, and government authorities will not solve the problem of racism for us. We must rely on ourselves and one another to end white supremacy. We support grassroots, anti-racist coordination in our communities, workplaces, and on the streets.
- We aim to create a culture of trust, solidarity, and support in our mobilization. We recognize that participants have different ideas, abilities, and perspectives on how to best obstruct white supremacist efforts. Our opposition will be stronger if we understand the diversity of our perspectives and strategies as an asset.
- The diversity of our movement means that no one person can speak on behalf of all participants in the actions against white supremacy. Similarly, no person can decide the actions someone else should take. Coherent and effective efforts against racism must also include a consciousness of how our actions impact those most vulnerable and at-risk amongst us.
STONE MOUNTAIN, GA
For thousands of years, Stone Mountain has been a place of ceremonial and administrative importance to the Creek Nation and once served as a neutral zone for the Creek and Cherokee Nations to meet, coordinate, and offer each other help from colonial invaders. In 1821, under the Treaty of Indian Springs, the U.S. Government and State of Georgia seized the mountain from the Creek Nation and in 1845, with the protection of the State of Georgia, the new town of Stone Mountain was settled by whites. Beginning early in the twentieth century, the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, inspired by the film Birth of a Nation, began using Stone Mountain as a meeting place and hub of white supremacist activity.
Today, Stone Mountain is a national park located in the city of Stone Mountain, GA, and has been state owned since 1958. Despite this, its long history as a site of organization and of symbolic importance for white nationalists continues. Legally, the mountain is a confederate monument, and is marked by a massive carving of Confederate generals — an effort first initiated by a Klan member and later completed by the state to combat the civil rights movement. For over a century, the KKK has held rallies and meetings at the mountain. Last year, in the aftermath of the mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, SC, Neo-Confederates rallied at Stone Mountain in support of the Confederate symbols.