Stone Mountain’s Neo-Confederates Target Anti-Racist Activists Online
(APN) ATLANTA — Two groups involved in a recent pro-Confederate flag rally appear to have threateningly targeted counter-demonstrators online.
The counter protesters included Aurielle Marie Lucier, Tommy DiMassimo, Ariella Riapos, and Lucas Javier Valderranna. Their activities were recorded by photographer Steve Eberhardt.
The groups had posted on their Facebook pages the names, background information, and contact information of the counter-demonstrators.
On Saturday, August 01, 2015, hundreds of people bearing Confederate flags and guns had gathered at Stone Mountain park to promote the Confederate flag as a symbol of “heritage, not hate.”
The rally was convened in reaction to calls from the Atlanta branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to remove the carving of Confederate generals from the side of the mountain.
At the rally, a group of counter demonstrators faced off with the flag supporters.
DiMassimo shredded and stomped on a Confederate flag while preaching against racism.
Lucier, a prominent figure in Atlanta’s Black Lives Matter movement, also stood on the flag and delivered an impassioned speech as the crowd jeered.
The back and forth was heated, and at one point a flag supporter began to draw a gun on DiMassimo, but a police officer intervened.
Further backlash was yet to come.
The flag rally was organized by a man named JT Nicholson who started a Facebook page called CSA Flag Rally 2015 (CSA stands for Confederate States of America).
On August 02, 2015, Nicholson posted the following message:
“Through a little investigating threw [sic] a source from Tennessee he said ** Ive [sic] been investigating the four main protestors at the rally all day and I have all their names locations and the groups they are with etc. Also photos of them standing on the American flag etc. They are also Actors. All four of them make movies and have a production company.. ** So they were paid to start drama and hate!”
He then posted photos of three counter-demonstrators.
He had drawn red circles around them to distinguish them from the rest of the crowd. The photos were accompanied by personal information that seemed to have been gleaned from their social media pages.
Atlanta Progressive News has obtained copies of the photos, but is declining to publish them in these circumstances.
The photos have since been taken down, although the original message is still on the CSA Flag Rally 2015 Facebook page as of the afternoon of August 08, 2015.
Another page called Confederate Flag Stealers posted similar information but with an even scarier tone.
The page’s users also targeted Lucier but somehow found her home address and posted it, along with threats of violence.
There is speculation that they paid for a background check in order to find the information.
The page was rife with racial slurs and hateful rhetoric.
Supporters of the targeted activists began appealing to Facebook to remove the page.
Facebook initially responded by saying that the page did not violate its community standards.
By August 07, 2015 that changed. Enough people had reported the page that Facebook finally took it down.
The rally at Stone Mountain happened amidst a wave of backlash against the Black Lives Matter movement.
The KKK has ramped up activity, most notably holding a demonstration in Charleston, South Carolina, where a White supremacist murdered nine Black churchgoers earlier this year.
Confederate flag rallies have taken place in dozens of other U.S. cities. Confederate flags were recently discovered placed on the grounds of Ebenezer Baptist church.
Also, as Atlanta Progressive News previously reported, Councilman Michael Julian Bond (Post 1-at-large) received a hateful and threatening email after the Atlanta City Council recently passed a resolution he had authored calling for Gov. Nathan Deal to initiate a study of how the carving could be augmented:
Confederate Flag supporters are planning another rally at Stone Mountain for August 22, 2015.
(END/2015)
Cross of St. Andrew / Stone Mountain up-date: 8-5-15
Albeit tinged with a flagrant layer of hate, the recent storming of Stone Mountain with lots of Confederate flags, I am sure you can agree with me, openly displayed a popular White Southern heritage. Right?
Yet, when it comes to “heritage,” what about the Cherokee and the Creek? Anyone remember the Cherokee and Creek who, for a thousand years plus, owned this Mountain before the Klan, complete with their Confederate flag, showed up?
How about a memorial to those hapless indigenous Souls who lost all of their property, far, far too many of their lives; and, rubbed out their entire thousand plus years old way of life?
For 29 years I have lived directly behind the Mountain. I know, first hand, the Klan reveres this place. And, it is known the Klan was instrumental in financing the carving. Further, via the Venables (Mr. Venable, Esq., back then, a well-known leader of the Klan held the property and encouraged rallies) the Klan held regular rallies, only a stone’s throw from my home, until we locals stopped them about 20 years ago or so.
Today, if you visit the “Park” side you will see a disgusting spectacle of Black actors playing out, in full dress, the actions of the “plantation slave” era overseen by the mammoth size Confederate carving and the same crowd managing Dollyville.
Of course, the Confederate lovers cannot get enough of this bigot tinged venue. Yet, here, our majority Black county (DeKalb) residents put up with this “Stone Mountain” disgrace for the money the Park brings to our area.
Still, given clear view of the “hidden in the open” blatant racism displayed in the Park every day (under guise of some absurd “historical” perspective), my neighbors, certainly, will make the right moral decision to change the Park into a more respectful place to visit.
Further, and mostly forgotten: older men, who hunted in this area before development, talk of many Cherokee/Creek relics of stone on the Mountain top and below, now, forever rubbed out by the “Park’s” invasion.
If God willing and the Creek “do” rise: clearly revealing Stone Mountain racism along with the unbridled desecration of Cherokee/Creek relics can convince more people to see this place in much clearer light.
Many thanks plus much respect for those willing to stand tall and expose the “Park” for what it really is.
Here, the “Park” managers wrangled (most likely bribed) a long term deal from our Georgia legislators and now manage Stone Mountain along with (Dollyville included) a couple dozen other venues. So, you know they have plenty of money to fight any profit eroding effort making them manage the “Park” in a more respectful way.
Importantly, do tighten your helmet, for, already (as you can see in the news), the recent Confederate flag storming of the Mountain shows the bigots are coming forth in droves, accosting your most moral drive with the usual racist vitriol they openly spew without the least bit of compunction.
Even more importantly, let there be no doubt: this same bunch of Confederate flag wavers are almost all, armed to the teeth, gun lovers; and, as history shows, many of them will start shooting with little or no provocation.
Ban the Confederate flag?
Absolutely not. Rev. Hosea Williams, Dr. Martin Luther King’s favored Field Lieutenant, taught; let racists speak their mind and fly their Confederate flag openly.
That way, we can know where the dangers are, act accordingly; and, most importantly, know exactly whose heart needs changing.
Rev. Williams often noted he was far more cautious with White-flighters who spoke so nicely about not being racist. Because, he said, these White types are often quite treacherous behind the backs of Black Folks.
He went on to teach: Let freedom ring as load as it will. The racist crowd should be permitted to speak as freely as they wish. That way when a racist speaks out, the rest of us can see the true person without some social miasma covering real expression.
Those North of the Mason-Dixon line may find this thinking appalling: however, let me tell you: racism here, in the South, is plainly dangerous. Down here we are far better off staying away from the avowed racists; and, that is far easier when your adversary announces his position.
Rev. Williams insisted we must let the racists fly their “St. Andrew’s Cross” and speak freely. He said: this is a dangerous crowd; and, it is only fitting the rest of us should have plenty of warning.
And, as you can see in news, showing the Confederate flag wavers storming Stone Mountain, Rev. Williams is absolutely right.
Albert Einstein taught: “There is a somber point in the social outlook of Americans, Their sense of equality and human dignity is mainly limited to men of white skins.
Your ancestors dragged these Black people from their homes by force; and in the White man’s quest for wealth and an easy life they have been ruthlessly suppressed and exploited, degraded into slavery.
The modern prejudice against Black people is the result of the desire to maintain this unworthy condition.
I do not believe there is a way in which this deeply entrenched evil can be quickly healed; but, until this goal is reached there is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of the good cause.”
Dear Steve,
There is no commemoration of the Creek or Cherokee because it was the “Pony Clubs”, forerunners to the Klan, that burned out these peaceful people and assisted Jackson’s genocidal removal of these tribes from their lands.
Wow! This article is falsehood passed off as truth. And they neglected to mention how the Politically Correct fascists plotted on Tumblr to flood Facebook with complaints to shut down the Confederate Flag Stealers.
The truth is that CFS was publicly shaming the anti-confederate protestors and providing authorities with the evidence of crimes. People were stealing and burning Confederate Flags and then boasting about it on their Facebook pages. CFS copied and posted those self-confessed crimes on the CFS site. CFS also reported those crimes to the proper authorities along with the legal statutes so that the police would do their jobs in an equal and fair manner.
CFS was NOT calling for violence against those PC anti-Confederates. The call was for the authorities to prosecute the publicly self-confessed criminal acts. And to publicly shame people for those criminal acts by posting their own Facebook words and photos for all to see.
When the CFS page became known for publicly shaming the anti-Confederates the PC then spread the word via Tumblr to shut CFS down. Here’s what the Tumblr posts said:
REPORT THE ‘CONFEDERATE FLAG STEALERS’ PAGE AND REBLOG THIS. Facebook NEEDS to take this down. Flood them with reports. Spread the word.
“The back and forth was heated, and at one point a flag supporter began to draw a gun on DiMassimo, but a police officer intervened.”
Typically, peaceful protesters do not arrive at their rallies with firearms. And any reasonable person understands that a Klan rally in a city that has very recently suffered a race motivated mass murder is most definitely intended to encourage intimidation and violence.
Public “shaming” is an interesting euphemism for attempting to threaten and intimidate. But posting a person’s home address belies the euphemism.
Confederate Flag supporters have been shot at, their peaceful demonstrations have been met by bottle throwing attacks. Confederate Flag supporter Anthony Hervey was killed.
The Confederate Flag Stealers page publicly shamed people for their self-confessed illegal acts. The PC fascists often threaten their opponents… getting them black-listed or fired.
CFS used the same tactic against the anti-Confederates. CFS never threatened people with physical violence. The threats were for arrest, prosecution and public shaming.
Where’s the criminal charge against CFS for violence or death threats. The charge doesn’t exist because it never happened.
Love how Sharon Reed reports from major cities (St. Louis, Cleveland, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia) where most violent crime or any crime for that matter is committed by brown and black boys with no fathers and only their mother’s tell us how good their boys are but now she’s preaching to Atlantans about how racist white people are at Stone Mountain over the Rebel “Battle” flag and the carving. I wonder if she’s aware that it took white American men to outlaw slavery and that Africa is still awash in it? Everyone praises her over her looks (white girl hair and an ability to speak English – sort of) and says how “brave” she is. Brave isn’t being a black chick with white girl hair and hanging out in Buckhead……brave is being a white person and being anywhere in metro Atlanta that isn’t Buckhead or Midtown. I also love watching her sit among 3 white men that give her the “whatchoo talkin bout Willis!?” look after her racist stories.