The city of Stone Mountain plans to shut down a busy street this weekend for a community event focused on unity and networking.
On Saturday, Nov. 16 from 2 to 5 p.m., the city will put up a large tent over Main Street with tables on the street. The event, titled “Stone Mountain @ the Table,” will be a first for the small DeKalb County city, and officials hope to make it an annual function.
“This event will bring together all corners of our community, joining our citizens, businesses, restaurants, churches and stakeholders in a show of unity, diversity and advancement,” City Manager ChaQuias Miller-Thornton wrote in a memo to residents.
The free, public event will include food and a speaker program.
Main Street, which passes through the center of the village, will be closed between East Mountain Street and Mimosa Drive from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. One northbound lane from Manor Drive and East Mountain Street will remain open all day.
City officials and residents have expressed a desire for Stone Mountain to shed the negative reputation that sometimes accompanies the area’s racial history, and instead show it is a diverse and welcoming place.
“This occasion serves to break down the walls that divide and to construct a bridge that connects,” Miller-Thornton wrote. “Today, we are not what history portrays us to be.”
Just last week, the Stone Mountain City Council voted to rename a street originally named after a family with historical ties to the Ku Klux Klan’s presence in Stone Mountain. Venable Street, the council voted, will be renamed to Eva Mamie Lane, honoring two women who were leaders in the historically African-American neighborhood of the city.
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