Civil rights activists protest Confederate Memorial Day at Georgia’s Stone Mountain

Hundreds of members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) were countered by civil rights protesters on Saturday at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia during their observation of Confederate Memorial Day.

The counterprotesters included members of the NAACP in Atlanta, the Democratic Socialists of America other local antifascists objecting to the rally.

According to videos uploaded to Twitter, counterprotesters gathered behind a fence and a police line to protest the event. Their shouts could be heard over the keynote speaker for the event, Martin O’Toole.

The event ended without any violent incidents, according to WSBTV in Atlanta.

Stone Mountain Park, in the town of the same name, is a 3,000-acre attraction known for its rock relief carved with the figures of Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The carving began in 1915 and was completed in 1972.

The SCV, which bills itself as the “oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers,” was denied a permit for a Confederate Memorial Day rally last year by the park association, which cited a “clear and present danger” as well as COVID-19.

The park association awarded the permit this year despite objections from several civil rights activists, including from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a local group, the Stone Mountain Action Coalition.

The Stone Mountain Action Coalition had demanded the park deny the permit, invoking the 2017 Unite the Right riot in Charlottesville, Va., which erupted in violence when counterprotesters clashed with far-right white nationalist groups.

“While the study and preservation of the Civil War is of grave importance, a shrine to the ideals of the Confederacy with no historical connection to the Civil War is a clear and dangerous threat to our American democracy,” the organization wrote in a statement.

Lecia Brooks of the Southern Poverty Law Center criticized the planned rally last week.

“Allowing SCV to celebrate the values of the Confederacy on public land validates the rhetoric of SCV and its keynote speaker, which sends a dangerous message that Stone Mountain continues to be a safe space for white nationalists to gather,” she said in a statement.

The park association argued they couldn’t deny the permit over free speech and assembly rights. Still, they shut down several attractions at Stone Mountain to minimize the event, according to WSBTV.