Application to hold cross burning atop Stone Mountain denied

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. – A Ku Klux Klan group’s request to burn a cross atop Stone Mountain in Georgia has been denied.

The Stone Mountain Memorial Association on Monday rejected the application from the Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to hold an Oct. 21 “lighting” ceremony. The application was submitted May 26.

The ceremony was proposed to commemorate a November 1915 cross burning on top of Stone Mountain that marked the KKK’s revival. Crosses were burned there annually, decades ago.

A Stone Mountain Memorial Association statement says it condemns the beliefs and actions of the KKK and that its rules allow for the denial of a permit for an event that would disrupt park activities or “appears to represent a clear and present danger to public health or safety.”