Professor at Valdosta University in Georgia says that the State of Georgia should drop all Confederate commemorations

The article is online here:

http://clatl.com/atlanta/activists-state-should-end-all-confederate-memorials/Content?oid=11620447

From Confederate Memorial Day to streets named for Ku Klux Klan founders, the state of Georgia should pull the plug on its official support of Confederacy celebrations, say two Valdosta activists in a recent open letter to Gov. Nathan Deal and the entire General Assembly. 

Such "Southern heritage" memorials are simply taxpayer-funded pseudo-history that celebrates white supremacy, they say. And state leaders so far aren't biting.

The letter is the brainchild of Mark Patrick George, a Valdosta State University sociologist who runs a project studying a local lynching spree of the early 1900s, and the Rev. Floyd Rose of the Lowndes/Valdosta chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

"We contact you today to respectfully call for an end to the state of Georgia's endorsement, promotion and support of all Confederate holidays, events, and its management of historic sites and monuments related to the Confederacy. We also call for an immediate change to all state roads and highways currently named for Confederate leaders," says the letter, sent on June 23. 

George says they are acting on their own, though they have started reaching out to civil rights groups. They want to spark discussion of racial issues and raise awareness that the "heritage, not hate" mythos is factually wrong. The idea came from a documentary film that George, who grew up in South Georgia, is making about Civil War re-enactors, many of whom, he says, falsely believe the Confederacy was not primarily motivated by slavery and racism. 

"What exactly are we celebrating?" George asks. The ultimate answer, he says, is leaders and soldiers "who said God declared white people should be in charge of black people ... Where are the thoughts and feelings of African-Americans who are citizens of this state? Black people are paying for, in many ways, their own degradation."

The whole Lost Cause nonsense needs to go into the garbage can. More people are seeing this.