The flags were placed below a poster that states “Black lives matter, hands up”, by a garbage can, on the path the historic MLK site and on the corner near the church, according to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
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Ebenezer Baptist Church’s top official told Atlanta’s WAGA-TV that the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security had been notified because the church is considered federal property. Statues of the Confederacy have been vandalized around the South, and state governments in South Carolina and Alabama have removed battle flags entirely from Capitol grounds.
After the white suspect in last month’s massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston appeared in photos waving Confederate flags, a movement was renewed to remove the flag from the public sphere.
Jones says Atlanta police Chief George Turner was at the scene.
The King Center complex sits just outside the eastern edge of downtown Atlanta along Auburn Avenue, once the epicenter of bustling black businesses and civil rights activities. Warnock said the hateful act only strengthens their resolve, and he promised the city would remain peaceful. The video has not been released.
Turner called the placing of the flags disgusting but not surprising.
Confederate flags have been placed at the King Center before. “We’ve seen this kind of ugliness before”. He says authorities have “good, strong physical evidence”.
According to the National Park Service, Ebenezer Baptist Church is where Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was baptized as a child, ordained as a minister at age 19, and his funeral was held there in 1968. Authorities are reviewing footage.
A security guard saw a suspicious vehicle across the street from the church on Wednesday night, but it was not clear if it was related.
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King once preached at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which is near the new church where the congregation now meets and where the flags were placed.
