What is the purpose of monuments?
Is there a difference between a monument and a memorial? Between a monument and a landmark? Please explain. Resource to support this discussion:
- “Monument vs Memorial - What's the difference?” Wikidiff.com.
- “Landmark vs Monument - What's the difference?” Wikidiff.com.
Why do we create monuments?
Who decides who or what is memorialized in a monument?
Do monuments document history? Whose history? What impact do monuments have on the public’s understanding of history?
How do monuments convey certain values to a community? What’s the significance of the fact that a monument is publicly funded and in a public space?

Graven Image:

Distribute Student Handout A: Film Notes and introduce the film, Graven Image. You may want to provide a brief introduction to the Stone Mountain monument by showing a photo of it and describing the generals it depicts. Play the film once asking students to pay close attention. Then instruct students to review the handout and take notes while watching the film a second time.

Organize students into small discussion groups and have them begin by reviewing their own questions about the film. Distribute Student Handout B: Group Discussion and the Smithsonian article “What Will Happen to Stone Mountain, America’s Largest Confederate Memorial?” to each student. Students can read the article silently or the group can take turns reading sections aloud, then discuss the article and film using the prompts in Handout B.

Following the group discussions, reconvene the class and reflect:

What was the intended purpose of the Stone Mountain monument? What impact did the creators want the carving to have on Georgia’s citizens?
The carving at Stone Mountain is often referred to as a “historical monument”. Is the monument making an argument about history? If so, what do you think it is and whose perspective does it represent? What values and assumptions underlie that historical narrative?
How has the significance of the memorial varied for different groups? (For example: white Georgians, African American Georgians, visitors from Southern states, visitors from Northern states, foreign visitors, etc.) Has the message or meaning changed over time?
- Why was Stone Mountain significant to the Ku Klux Klan? What role has the KKK played in the history of the Stone Mountain Monument?
- Why do you think Martin Luther King Jr. included Stone Mountain in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963?
- What inspired the state of Georgia to resume work on the monument in 1958? (What was happening in the U.S. at that time?)
- The State of Georgia officially opened Stone Mountain Park on April 14, 1965. Why is this date significant? What message was being sent to park visitors? (April 14, 1965 was the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
What role do monuments play in our understanding of history? Are monuments reminders of historic facts or propaganda (or both)?
What is the significance of the fact that the Stone Mountain memorial is explicitly protected by Georgia state law? How can governments perpetuate certain historical narratives?

Historical Memory

Introduce the following quotes and have students rewrite one of them in their own words. Discuss how this idea connects with our exploration of monuments.

We are what we remember, and as memories are reconfigured, identities are redefined.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, historian

What is called collective memory is not a remembering but a stipulating: that this is important, and this is the story about how it happened, with the pictures that lock the story in our minds.

Susan Sontag, philosopher and writer

What is historical memory? Ask students if they are familiar with the term “historical memory” and/or if a volunteer could share what they think it means.

Optional: Share the following videos about historical memory from Brown University’s Choices Program:

“What is historical memory?” The Choices Program Brown University (3:13 mins)

“What is the difference between history and memory?” The Choices Program Brown University (2:03 mins)

Review: Historical memory refers to the way that groups of people create and identify with specific narratives about past periods or events. Distribute Student Handout C: Historical Memory. Have volunteers read the below description of historical memory.

Historical memory is sometimes also called collective memory or social memory and is comprised of several types of memory:

Familial memory: memories of personal experiences that families and communities pass down to their descendants.
Cultural/religious memory: a group’s common account of the past that is informed by shared belief systems, norms and traditions. (This often overlaps with familial memory.)
National/state memory: the official narratives sanctioned by the government, which are shaped by the values and priorities of dominant groups, including people in positions of power. It can be transmitted through education, politics, media and public cultural resources.

As Jacquelyn Hall’s quote discusses, historical memory shapes the identities of people in societies and can change as cultural values and social hierarchies evolve.

Organize students in small groups and distribute a copy of Student Handout D: Historical Memory & Stone Mountain with the idea web graphic organizers to each group. Have groups search for and read articles that illustrate the arguments made for and against removing the Stone Mountain monument and other Confederate symbols in the state. (Note: Groups can draw their idea webs on large pieces of chart paper instead of using the handout.)

Take-Home Project: Our Monumental History

Have students select a monument in their community and explore its historical context, purpose, and significance using Student Handout E: Our Monumental History as a guide. Students can select monuments from any era, but if they are interested in focusing on Confederate monuments, have them visit the Southern Poverty Law Center’s interactive map “Whose Heritage? A Report on Public Symbols of the Confederacy”.

For their research, encourage students to engage with a variety of primary and secondary resources, including newspaper archives, artifacts, written correspondence, Internet/library research, and oral history interviews with members of the community.

Have students use their research to design a plaque that “contextualizes” the statue by providing a historical narrative about the period it represents, the time it was commissioned and its significance today.

Note: For additional information on the “contextualization” movement see the New York Times article, “Ole Miss Edges Out of Its Confederate Shadow, Gingerly” by Stephanie Saul from August 9, 2017.

Completed projects should include the “contextualization” plaque and a multimedia presentation on the monument, the historical memory it represents, and what it means today to different stakeholders in the community. The projects can be multi-media presentations or short films in the style of Graven Image. Students should link their presentations to the monument location on Google maps.

Reflection/Homework

Students should write a response to one of the following prompts:

How should we decide what or whom we memorialize in monuments? What process could we use to ensure our public monuments are inclusive and reflective of the values of the whole community?
How should we deal with monuments that represent ideologies that are divisive, oppressive, or run contrary to contemporary values? Is adding contextualizing plaques enough (why or why not)? What’s your position in the controversy surrounding the Stone Mountain Monument? Would you remove the carving? Would you change the context of the monument in some way by altering the carving or adding additional carvings? Other ideas include installing a memorial to an African American civil rights leader on top, or providing more nuanced and accurate information about the figures it represents.
Are monuments a good idea? Why or why not? What are the benefits and disadvantages of monuments and should we continue to make them?

Sources

About the author:

Allison Milewski

Allison Milewski has developed media education resources for a range of award-winning filmmakers and national media organizations, including PBS LearningMedia, Independent Television Services (ITVS), Latino Public Broadcasting, HBO Documentaries, and Tribeca Film Institute. She is also the founder of the international media education program, PhotoForward.org.