Memorial Day service postponed

Monuments at Veterans Plaza in Atlanta stood as sentinels for Memorial Day Monday. Too much rain had fallen in the night and was still falling, especially for the electronic equipment which would have been needed to conduct the honorary memorial service.

So, the event was postponed, according to Mike Stewart of the J. E. Manning American Legion Post 258 which leads the service each year.

“Some parts of the Memorial Day service such as the taking down of the American flag and giving it to the proper family we’ll just do at our post meeting in June,” Stewart said.

Still, it may be beneficial to tell once again of how the veterans plaza, which is in the central portion of Atlanta, came to be at its location at the corner of North East Street and West Main in downtown Atlanta.

The history of Memorial Day and Atlanta’s Veterans Memorial Plaza goes back to 1998 when the city wished to make a farmers’ market out of Caboose Plaza or Cow Corner and so asked the American Legion if it wished to move its memorial from there to the corner location.

That corner land for a veterans memorial had been given in memory of Atlanta visionaries William David Lanier (1847-1930); Thomps Robins Richey (1872-1934); and Mozelle Richey Smith (1910-2001).

The move was decided upon in 1998 and rapidly accomplished in 1999.

Post member Jay Ransom sketched a design that was to be the memorial. In Ransom’s idea, three tall black granite slabs would radiate from a centered flagpole which would be tall and brightly lighted.

The six sides of the stones would hold inscriptions. The first commemorative bricks were laid in February of that year.

Then, in 2002, the Atlanta Lions Club began discussing an idea for paintings as public art to enhance the memorial.

The city was approached and, using its downtown development money which was a sales tax to improve the downtown, the decision was made to have the art created by the late Brad Attaway, a muralist living in Linden and a 1973 Atlanta High graduate.

The paintings are 7 by 10 feet on canvas-covered plywood with aluminum frames. Attaway took about 22 months to paint and install the art, finishing upon Memorial Day in 2003.

The Memorial Day service of 2023 included a ribbon cutting for the coming installation of a monument for veterans of Middle East Wars. Members of the Manning American Legion Post and the Queen City VFW Post 5870 led this effort of recognition, especially with the leadership of the late Mike Lee.

The red ribbon was cut by Atlanta Mayor James Brooks. Two stones of the new monument have arrived and are installed. That project is still being completed and will be finished by veterans and their many supporters.