Huge group of armed Black protesters march on Confederate monument in Georgia

Bob Brigham
Raw Story
Sat, 04 Jul 2020 19:39 UTC

Armed black protesters marched in Geogia on Independence Day to protest one of the largest Confederate monuments in the world.

"Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, a nine-story-high bas-relief sculpture carved into a sprawling rock face northeast of Atlanta, is perhaps the South's most audacious monument to its pro-slavery legacy still intact," Reuters reported on Friday. "The monument - which reopens on Independence Day weekend after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close for weeks - has faced renewed calls for removal since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died during an arrest by a white police officer who pinned his neck to the ground with a knee."

Upon reopening, a huge group of armed Black protesters marched through Stone Mountain.

Here are some of the scenes from the protests:

Comment: Some more clips of the march:

Official response so far:

Despite many on social media reacting to clips of the Saturday demonstration with worry, officials say the protesters conducted their business peacefully.

"It's a public park, a state park. We have these protests on both sides of the issue from time to time. We respect people's First Amendment right," John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, told WXIA-TV.