May 16, 2005
WSBTV
The owners of a drilling company have removed a stuffed monkey that had been hung from a crane and draped with a Confederate flag after the display prompted outrage from community activists.
The move came Monday after residents and activists from the Cobb County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and New Order gathered in front of Johnson Drilling Co. to protest and later met with company officials.
The stuffed monkey, which also had its face and hands painted black, had been hanging from a crane outside Johnson Drilling Co. for about two or three months, the company's owner, Hubert Johnson, said.
"No one has ever complained," Hubert said.
The monkey was being used as a training aid and to remind workers to not "monkey around with safety," Johnson said.
"It has no other significance except trying to make people think about safety when they are lowered into the hole," he said.
But others saw the display as being racially offensive.
For black students at Whitfield Academy, which is next door, the display was very hurtful, said headmaster Tim Hillen. Last fall, the parents of several potential students decided not to enroll their children their after seeing it, Hillen said.
But even though the monkey has been removed, some still want an apology.
"What kind of message is this?" said Gerald Rose, chief executive officer and founder of New Order, a Cobb County-based human rights group.
"It's very, very disrespectful that in 2005 this kind of display would even take place," Rose said.
The Rev. O.J. Brown, president of Cobb County Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was also not satisfied by the company's explanation that the monkey was simply a training tool.
"That's just not good enough," Brown said. "If it was for training, why was it painted black? Why was it wrapped in that flag?"
Although the monkey was taken down, five flags displaying the Confederate battle emblem were also flying at the company Monday. A trailer on the property was spray-painted with "311," which the Anti Defamation League defines as a hate symbol representing the Ku Klux Klan.
http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=60774