Dear Roberta Green,
You will not break this town. We are stronger than a little KKK sign. All you have done is blemished the town's reputation and ultimately harmed your own business. You thought giving a voice of hate in this town would let you get your way, but you forgot, Dahlonega is a town of love.
I've only lived here for a few years since I started attending UNG, and Dahlonega has become my home. This little mountain town might not be perfect, but we certainly aren't a place for the KKK. When you authorized that sign to be put up, you tried to attack our home and blackmail its people. It honestly surprises me that even though you have lived and worked here far longer than I have, you didn't know this scare tactic would not work on us.
To me, it seems like you have forgotten so much about the very town you live and do business in. You have forgotten the history this town holds within it's buildings, the very buildings you want to tear down and replace with a tacky boutique hotel. You've forgotten that this town is the one that has supported your businesses and made you wealthy. Yet you now decide to treat the very same town with utter disrespect. You forget that we are a loving town that will push back against any hate group coming into our home.
The KKK has never had a place in our town and we know a sign will not change that. However, you have now given them a voice in our town, one that we will try to drown out, but we know it will echo outside of the city limits. You have given voice to a stereotype of small towns in the countryside. A stereotype we defy to this very day. When we held the press conference on how and why we will boycott you, people from everywhere came to voice their support for it. People of all shapes, sizes, colors and political affiliations came together to agree on one thing: we will not stand for anyone giving a hate group like the KKK a voice in our beautiful and welcoming town.
In your press release, you claim this was a response to the town not letting you tear down the building to build your boutique hotel. You claim it would be for the benefit of the city, so why did you resort to such methods to harm it now? We know this wasn't the real reason you put up the sign. You are acting like a child and throwing a fit over not getting your way. You could have taken the chance in your press release to be mature and apologize for your actions, but not once in it did you even mention the sign. You just decided to play the victim, which you are most certainly not. You are the one that took our city's reputation hostage.
We will wait patiently for an apology, but we will not wait quietly. We will be busy making sure that Dahlonega stay beautiful despite the blemish you have left on our town. We will make sure our reputation stays strong and meet your antagonism with class. One thing to never forget, Dahlonega has a heart of gold.
