54 years to the date Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I Have A Dream” speech, a statue of the iconic civil rights leader was raised in the town he grew up in. A sculpture in King’s likeness will now stare in the North East direction towards King’s birthplace and the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he developed his gift as an orator, from the Georgia State Capitol grounds upon which it stands.

King’s statue is being erected at a symbolic time, as the long battle to have Confederate monuments removed from public land has taken root in the aftermath of Charlottesville. However, those on hand for the occasion could not avoid being made aware of the unique disposition King’s statue faces in sharing the capitol grounds with monuments dedicated to such Confederate figures as John Brown Gordon, who was also alleged to be a leader within the early Ku Klux Klan. It is a reality that won’t likely be altered in the present, as Georgia has a law on the books that forbids statues of a certain age from being “relocated, removed, concealed, obscured, or altered in any fashion.”

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal actually sees the inclusion of monuments revered by others, rather than the removal of statues revered by some to be a winning formula and used the event to express so. “I think that this will be a symbol that the state of Georgia is in the business of erecting monuments to deserving individuals rather than focusing its attention on taking down monuments of the past,” he said.

Faced with political pressure to confront the matter, Deal, who is currently in an election race against a candidate who has proposed that the statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis all be removed from Confederate mecca, Stone Mountain, appears to be switching his tone on the prevalence of Confederate statues. However, the Republican remains some lengths behind his opposition on the issue, in having expressed an apprehension to use explosives to bring the mountain’s carvings down. But he is now saying that he thinks it is time for the Legislature to discuss the possibility of amending the law, so as to allow for the removal of figures that are largely denounced by the public.

VIA