"We've allowed the ones who lost the war to write the narrative," said Baptist Rev. Tim McDonald. "It's not good for our children. It's not good for our culture." Leaders in Atlanta are considering adding signs to the Peace Monument to explain that the Peace Mission excluded 200K African-Americans soldiers.
"Don’t leave them uncontested," says Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. "If you want to leave them, you better tell the truth about them."
Heidi Beirich is director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center:
"A plaque standing next to something that massive and already offensive can’t really undo the harm to citizens who are being exposed to it. It’s very, very hard to write history correctly about what happened in the Confederacy and in the South when you’re facing monuments."