A black Atlanta city council member started receiving racist hate mail this week after he proposed changing the giant Confederate monument on Georgia’s Stone Mountain to include Martin Luther King Jr. and other figures, an Atlanta television station reported Wednesday.
Councilman Michael Bond asked Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) on Tuesday to consider adding other historical figures to the carving that currently features three Confederate leaders, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, according to WAGA.
His suggestion of adding former President Jimmy Carter and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the carving was met with criticism.
But, according to Bond, the most disturbing email also threatened his family.
WAGA posted a photo of the email, which read: “You are nothing but a scumbag piece of shit and I hope you and your family eat shit, choke and fucking die. black lives don’t matter. The only good nigger is a goddamn dead nigger.”
Stone Mountain Park is a state park about 20 miles outside the Georgia capital and the sculpture in question is part of what’s described as the “largest high-relief sculpture in the world.” It’s also the birthplace of the modern iteration of the Klu Klux Klan.
Talking Points Memo previously reported on the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) calling for the massive carving to be “sand-blasted” off the mountain.
