Fort to restaurant: Don’t reinstall Confederate emblem

A state senator from Atlanta wants the Atlanta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to ask a private restaurant to not reinstall the Confederate emblem.

The OK Café has been closed since a December fire, but the owners are reportedly planning to re-open the famous establishment soon. State Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, met with the ACVB this morning.

“Today I requested to the Atlanta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau that they ask the OK Café not to reinstall the Confederate emblem that had been in the restaurant before the recent fire closed the establishment,” Fort said. “I told ACVB’s Executive Board that even though the OK Café was not currently a member of their organization the ACVB needed to show the same kind of leadership they did fifteen years ago during the fight to change the state flag.  I also told them that after the Charleston massacre the debate over Confederate symbols has intensified and changed.

“I was gratified when William Pate, ACVB’s President and CEO, said he would draft a letter to the owners of the OK Café requesting they not reinstall the Confederate symbol for the board’s consideration,” Fort added. “In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘It is always the right time to do the right thing.’”