UPDATE: Rev. Raphael Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church said the placement of four Confederate flags outside two of Atlanta’s historical sites early Thursday was a terrorist act meant to intimidate.
“Let the message go out that we will not be shaken by this,” Warnock said at a morning news conference. “We will not be intimidated.
The pastor has been outspoken on recent police shootings, the massacre in Charleston and the debate over the Confederate flag.
Warnock said placement of the flag at the church was equivalent to placing a Swastika on a Jewish campus. He called the person or persons responsible “misguided.”
Federal and local authorities were looking at the church’s surveillance cameras to try to identify suspects.
Warnock said it was ironic that the incident occurred on a day that he and other clergy from around the country had gathered to address the issue of racism and the “mass incarceration” of black men in the nation’s prisons.
Federal and local investigators are hopeful surveillance cameras captured the person responsible for placing four Confederate flags outside two of Atlanta’s historical sites early Thursday.
Four Confederate flags were placed overnight at Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site Visitor Center, police said Thursday morning.
About 6 a.m., a maintenance man saw the flags on the grounds and notified a U.S. Park Ranger, Atlanta police Officer Gary Wade told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. That ranger called Atlanta police, one of the agencies investigating the incident at the Auburn Avenue historical sites. Homeland Security was also called to investigate, said Rev. Shanan Jones, who added the church expects to release a statement about the flags later in the day.
The flags were placed below a poster that states “BLACK LIVES MATTER, HANDS UP,” by a garbage can, on the path to the MLK Visitor Center and on a corner near the church. Just after 9:30 a.m., they were removed and placed in the trunk of an Atlanta police squad car.
There are security cameras at the church, but it was not immediately known if the cameras captured anything, Wade said.
Azuria Beeks, a 17-year-old member of the church, stood solemnly across the street from Ebenezer watching police officers scour the area.
“It’s disgusting,” she said. “They’re living in the past. They want us to fear them. And it’s not working.”
Tracey Jackson, a 45-year-old from Atlanta who lives near the historic church, said: “This breaks my heart. It’s just taking the flag to another level. That flag represents what happened in the past. And too many people are holding on to that past. It just hurts.
Acme