The changing face of the South reflected on Georgia's Stone Mountain
By JENNIE JARVIE
... "Every day, I enjoy the freedom that those before me didn't have," said Regina Boyd, 33, an African American clinical researcher who climbs the trail almost every day before work ... While Boyd was growing up, her great-grandmother warned her never to set foot on Stone Mountain ...
The carving of the rock began in 1923 ... Back then, the rock sat on land owned by a Klan sympathizer, whose son later became an Imperial Wizard of the National Knights of the Klan.
... The carving was abandoned for nearly three decades, until the State of Georgia purchased the land in 1958, forming the Stone Mountain Memorial Assn. to oversee the monument's completion. The sculpture ... was not finished until 1972.
Since then the small railroad town below the rock has undergone a demographic change. The city's African American population jumped from 13% in 1980 to 75% in 2010. In 1997, the city elected its first African American mayor ...
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-stone-mountain-20150731-story.html
