Atlanta NAACP Calls for Removal of Confederate Sculpture on Stone Mountain

The Atlanta NAACP made a call on Monday to remove Confederate symbols from Stone Mountain, a park in Georgia. They said that the massive Confederate Memorial Carving, which is a carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, should be removed, whether by sand-blasting or more preservative ways.

"[A]ll of this recognition of Confederate generals is upholding the white supremacy on which the Confederacy was founded and the war was fought," Richard Rose, president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, said.

The Confederate Memorial Carving is a relief sculpture carved into the face of Stone Mountain, 400 feet off the ground. It measures 90 by 190 feet. Work on the carving began in the 1910s and was completed in 1972 with a series of sculptors and interruptions. The mountain was bought by the state of Georgia in 1958.

This call for removal of Confederate symbols from the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP comes less than a week after the Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina statehouse. President Barack Obama called the removal of the flag "a signal of good will and healing, and a meaningful step towards a better future."

Calls for the removal of Confederate memorials have been made across the south following the racially motivated shooting of nine people in the history Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina by Dylann Roof in June. Many people have argued that they fly the Confederate flag — and memorialize the Confederacy in other ways — to honor their heritage, but others say that symbols of the Confederacy reflect racism.

"For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation," Obama said in his eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in the shooting at the AME Emanuel Church.

South Carolina taking down the confederate flag - a signal of good will and healing, and a meaningful step towards a better future.

— President Obama (@POTUS) July 10, 2015

Admittedly, removing a large relief sculpture from the face of a mountain is more difficult than taking down a flag, but the Atlanta NAACP leaders are adamant that it must be done.

"Those guys need to go. They can be sand-blasted off, or somebody could carefully remove a slab of that and auction it off to the highest bidder," Rose said.