Truth is marching on: the Lasershow Spectacular at the Stone Mountain Park Confederate Memorial and the changing narratives of history

Abstract

The overarching goal of this paper is to examine the changing historical narratives of the Stone Mountain Park Confederate Memorial as seen through the Lasershow Spectacular, and how this performance speaks to broader issues of race, identity, geography, and memory. The implications of this discourse are especially significant for the identity construction of marginalized collectives. I begin with a brief theoretical explanation of history and cultural memory as socially constructed, including the significance of who gets to create it, its relationship with identity, and the connection between history and cultural memory and popular/consumer culture. Next, I discuss the current state of heritage tourism and how it relates to issues of racial (in)justice. Finally, I turn to Stone Mountain and the Lasershow Spectacular as a case study to examine the social construction of history and cultural memory at a tourist attraction, specifically discussing how the African-American experience is addressed (or not addressed) in Southern heritage tourism. This paper seeks to answer the call in a recent special issue of Tourism Geographies for more work that addresses African-American tourism and the inclusion/exclusion of African-Americans from tourist sites (Alderman, 2013).

Keywords:

• identity
• memory
• history
• heritage tourism
• Stone Mountain
• popular culture
• contested heritage

Notes on contributor

Katharine P. Zakos is a Ph.D. candidate and instructor at Georgia State University, USA, where she also serves as the social media coordinator for Liquid Blackness and as associate editor for In Media Res.

Notes

1 Incidentally, this visual depiction of the south as separate from the rest of the nation persists on many neo-Confederate websites (where the animation often portrays the south as breaking free from the rest of the nation, rather than coming together as it does in the Lasershow) (McPherson, 2003, p. 108).

2 Hayden (1999) discusses the political and esthetic influences in the changing social history of a landscape, and Hasian (2004) has also addressed these issues in his work, as has Leib (2002).

3 The park originally included a “prison camp for park labor” (Stone Mountain History PDF, 2014, pp. 4–5) which was demolished in 2002 (p. 6). The use of prison labor to build the park's attractions is also documented in the work of Hale (2003, p. 229).

4 The park administration originally hired actress Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen (perhaps best known for her role as “Prissy” in Gone With the Wind) to “live in the ‘Big House's’ kitchen and greet visitors” at the opening of the antebellum plantation in 1963; however, when McQueen quit in 1965, she had to threaten to sue the park to stop the use of her picture to promote the attraction, and park administration did not comply until 1968 (Hale, 2003, p. 229).

5 Lowery (2012) provides an excellent explanation of the Lost Cause that merits quoting the following passage at length:

In the aftermath of the Civil War, southern whites responded to defeat by creating a set of myths that helped them cope with that loss and preserve their culture in the face of the radical transformation brought about by defeat. They used the Lost Cause to redefine the region as God's chosen land and assuage the experience of suffering and defeat. Southern whites celebrated the antebellum era as a golden age populated by benevolent masters, virtuous mistresses, and faithful slaves. Adherents to the Lost Cause believed that the changes instituted by Republican Reconstruction policies tragically attempted to dismantle this old order. In response to these troubling times, they looked to the heroes of the Confederate generation for models of manhood and Christian virtue to endure. Among the early contributors of this campaign were elite southern white women, who initiated memorial efforts to commemorate the Confederate dead. (p. 225)

Additionally, McPherson (2003) emphasizes the differences between current and original Lost Cause ideologies; namely, the absence of the archetypal southern lady as well as the decline of the overtly racist rhetoric of the earlier era (pp. 108–115).

6 See Lowery (2012, p. 231) for more on this artifact.

7 This did not, however, apply to the land at the base of the mountain that was still owned by the Venable family, so the Klan moved all further demonstrations there.

8 The Stone Mountain Park website provides a list of songs currently included in the show; the following list was for the April 2011 version:

  2001: A Space Odyssey Overture (John Williams)

 Sports Medley

    Jock Jams Mix (Various Artists)

    Ga. Southern, Georgia, Ga. Tech Fight Songs

 Regional Medley

    Georgia On My Mind (Ray Charles/Willie Nelson)

    Sweet Southern Comfort (Buddy Jewell)

    Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)

    Who Wouldn't Want To Be Me (Keith Urban)

    Loud (Big & Rich)

 An American Trilogy (Elvis Presley)

 Celestial Soda Pop (Ray Lynch)

 Devil Went to Georgia (Charlie Daniels Band)

 Heroes Medley

    Tribute to the Common Man (Aaron Copeland)

    Hero (Mariah Carey)

    I Will Go the Distance (Michael Bolton)

 Our Music is Georgia Music

    Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding)

    Tutti Frutti (Little Richard)

    I Can't Stop Lovin' You (Count Bassie/Ray Charles)

    Closer to Fine (Indigo Girls)

    Hey Ya (Outkast)

    End of the World As We Know It (REM)

    Chattahoochee (Alan Jackson)

    Something More (Sugarland)

    Ramblin Man (Allman Brothers)

    Roam (B52's)

    I Feel Good (James Brown)

 Patriotic Finale

    Star Spangled Banner (Sandi Patty)

(Lasershow Spectacular – Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, GA, 2011).

9 This move toward inclusion at the turn of the century prompted Horwitz (1998) to called the Lasershow “a puddle of political correctness”, and to lament that “[l]ike so much in Atlanta, Stone Mountain [has] become a bland and inoffensive consumable: the Confederacy as hood ornament” (p. 288).