A picture emerged late Oct. 22 showing Stacey Abrams, the Democrat gubernatorial candidate for Georgia, burning the state’s flag during a protest.
Abrams admitted to burning the flag on the steps of the state’s Capitol in June 1992.
She was a freshman at Atlanta’s Spelman College at the time of the protest, which organizers described as protesting to “overcome racially divisive issues.”
“We’re going to send Georgia’s racist past up in Flames,” another student at the protest then told the outlet. “Today we fight fire with fire. Burn, baby, burn!”
“During Stacey Abrams’ college years, Georgia was at a crossroads, struggling with how to overcome racially divisive issues, including symbols of the Confederacy, the sharpest of which was the inclusion of the Confederate emblem in the Georgia state flag,” the statement read. “This conversation was sweeping across Georgia as numerous organizations, prominent leaders, and students engaged in the ultimately successful effort to change the flag.”
Georgia’s previous flag included Confederate battle flag symbols, as it was one of the Confederate states before the Civil War. The state adopted a new flag without the symbols in 2003.
Confederate Symbols
Abrams has advocated for removing a massive cliff-side carving on Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, that ranks as the largest Confederate monument in the nation.“My belief is the state should never fund monuments to domestic terrorism. They have to be put in context,” she told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
But others have defended the memorial, such as current Governor Nathan Deal.
“In Georgia, where these symbols are no longer on our state flag or on Capitol grounds, Stone Mountain serves that purpose.”
Experts told the broadcaster it would cost millions of dollars to alter or move the carving. Abrams suggested the funds could be crowdsourced.
“We should learn from the past—not attempt to re-write it,” he added.