Stone Mountain Park officially opened on April 14 , 1965 – 100 years to the day after Lincoln 's assassination . Four flags of the Confederacy are flown . The Stone Mountain Memorial Lawn " contains ... thirteen terraces — one for each Confederate state ... . Each terrace flies the flag that the state flew as member of the Confederacy . " Stone Mountain was " '' the '' sacred site to members of the second and third national klans . " The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan – the second Klan — was inspired by D. W. Griffith 's 1915 Klan-glorifying film , '' The Birth of a Nation '' . It was followed in August by the highly publicized lynching of Leo Frank in nearby Marietta , Georgia . On November 25 of the same year , Thanksgiving Day , a small group , including fifteen robed and hooded " charter members " of the new organization , met at the summit of Stone Mountain to create a new iteration of the Klan . They were led by William J. Simmons , and included two elderly members of the original Klan . As part of their ceremony , they set up on the summit an altar covered with a flag , opened a Bible , and burned a 16-foot cross
Lincoln 's assassination
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Stone Mountain