Confederate Statue Debate: GOP Lawmaker Warns Democrat She Could 'Go Missing'

ATLANTA, GA — A Republican lawmaker from Georgia has caused a brouhaha after reportedly posting on social media that a former state lawmaker "will go missing in the Okefenokee" — a 400,000-acre wildlife refuge — if she doesn't tamp down her support for the removal of Confederate monuments. Republican Rep. Jason Spencer of Woodbine in South Georgia made the remarks to former Georgia state Rep. LaDawn Jones of Atlanta in a series of Facebook messages, which have since been deleted, according to news reports.

The exchange is just the latest in a long-simmering debate over Confederate symbols and imagery in Georgia and much of the South, but it has caught fire anew in recent days after the tragic clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia. And some say Spencer's comments are an echo of an ugly, earlier period in history when African-Americans were lynched and murdered at the hands of whites. (Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

As evidence that the debate is raging like never before, a state lawmaker and Atlanta mayoral candidate recently called for the removal of the Confederate monument on Stone Mountain. Mayor Kasim Reed has said that he will make a decision on renaming Confederate street names and markers after he is advised by a panel he appointed to study the issue. Former Gov. Roy Barnes, now a Marietta lawyer, said that a popular East Atlanta street should be renamed.

Remove Confederate Carving On Stone Mountain: Atlanta Lawmaker

Also See: Why Confederate Monuments Exist In The First Place

Spencer said that since Jones keeps pushing to remove the monuments, she shouldn't be surprised if she's confronted with “something a lot more definitive” than Tiki torches, a reference to Charlottesville. Spencer also told Jones, a former colleague of his at the Georgia Assembly, that “people in South Georgia are people of action, not drama.” He indicated that if she didn't get the point, she “will go missing in the Okefenokee.”

“Too many necks they are red around here,” Spencer said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about ’em.”

Jones, responded that the day of the Old South was coming to an end. “Enjoy but know … WINTER IS COMING,” she wrote, according to the AJC. “You know it too … otherwise you wouldn’t have found a need to even make this post or those hollow threats of not coming to south GA.”

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Jones told the newspaper that she served next to Spencer for four years, before her term ended in 2016. “If that had come from anybody else, I’d take it as a serious threat,” she was quoted as saying.

Spencer, for his part, said that he was looking at the issue in partisan lenses. “Just trying to keep her safe if she decided to come down and raise hell about the memorial in the backyards of folks who will see this as an unwelcome aggression from the left,” he was quoted as saying.

The Georgia chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations said that Spencer's remarks should be condemned by his fellow lawmakers.

"Every Georgia lawmaker should disavow Rep. Jason Spencer's threatening remarks, and no Georgia lawmaker should accept his utterly unapologetic statement of faux regret," the council said in a statement to Patch.

• Kennesaw City Council Passes Resolution to Decide Fate Of Confederate Flag
• Change Name Of Confederate Avenue In Atlanta, Says Ex-Gov Roy Barnes
• Ex-Atlanta Mayor Andy Young: Confederate Flag Issue Not Of Substance
• Watch: Demonstrators Sing 'We Shall Overcome' In Decatur: ICYMI
• Mayor To Form Panel To Decide On Atlanta's Confederate Street Names

Images via Georgia State Legislature