A group of activist artists added a touch of blue humor to the mural of a controversial memorabilia shop in downtown Kennesaw that’s known for selling Confederate paraphernalia and Jim Crow-era souvenirs.
A brick wall atop the Wildman’s Civil War Surplus store was vandalized with what the alleged culprits described as “antifa Smurfs” that resemble the blue cartoon characters.
Indecline, which calls itself an “activist art collective,” was founded in 2001. The group, which targets racism and social injustices, issued a press release to local media Sunday taking credit for the graffiti. They called it “a large-scale art installation.”
According to the press release, which was issued anonymously from thisisindecline.com, artists from the group spent about six months visiting the Kennesaw shop, posing as Civil War enthusiasts. They gained the trust of Dent “Wildman” Myers, the 90-year-old owner who opened the shop in 1971.
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According to Indecline, Myers gave the group the okay to redesign the pre-existing brick mural, which featured paintings of two Confederate soldiers armed with muskets surrounding the store’s logo.
Indecline released a 23-sceond video that showed Myers telling someone who asked about the mural, “It’s okay, you can do anything you want to do. I’m glad to have you.” The artist, whose voice was electronically altered in the clip, quipped, “Don’t say we can do anything... We’ll put a bunch of antifa Smurfs up there.”
Myers seemed to take the comment as a joke. “Thank you very much,” he said with a light chuckle.
Indecline painted several Smurfs depicted as members of antifa. The group painted over the name of the Civil War shop, replacing the most of the logo with Indecline’s slogan “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.”
The artists placed a cartoonish cat head over one soldier’s face. Next to it, the group hung an angry Smurf wielding a baseball bat with an anti-Nazi symbol.
The soldier on the other side of the mural also had his face covered with a cartoonish image of a Confederate troop. A Smurf raising its fist in the air was on one side urinating on the soldier’s arm while a Smurf of the other side held a Molotov cocktail.
Myers was reached at his store Monday but declined to comment on the incident over the phone.
Kennesaw police say they are investigating the incident, which occurred Saturday night.
Antifa is short for antifascist. The group, considered a broad, leaderless movement of the far left, has supported counterprotests to rallies by white supremacists, neo-Confederates and neo-Nazis around the state. It’s not known whether or how Indecline and antifa are connected.
Indecline has taken credit for other politically motivated public art displays across the nation. In July, they broke into the Christ of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and used pulleys to hang a 44-foot-long cloth banner that read “God Bless Abortions” on a large statue of Christ.
In 2016, the group made a naked, life-sized statue of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump that was showcased in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Seattle.
According to the group, the display at Wildman’s Civil War Surplus was intended as a humorous protest of Myers’ operation.
“Mr. Myers hides behind his politeness, and his apologists excuse his ignorance with his age,” a statement from the group said. “But their conclusion is that the rest of us just need to wait for the racists to die before we begin to dismantle their legacy. Dr. King already told us why we can’t wait.”
Wildman’s Civil War Surplus sells old Ku Klux Klan outfits, photos of people holding Nazi flags, Jim Crow-era dolls of children with exaggerated African American features, along with other racist paraphernalia.
Myers has described his store as a museum and said it was opened to preserve history. But many have called for the shop to be closed because it promotes symbols of white supremacy. Last June, dozens of Kennesaw State University students protested outside the storefront and pressed for its shutdown.
“Mr. Myers claims to have no racial animosity. He claims he’s just running a museum (though everything’s for sale),” Indecline’s statement said. “When people get offended, he calls those parts a joke. We love jokes. But our only question is: If the Civil War was really just about a group of noble men forced to fight for their honor, why are we still talking about it? That sounds more like a tantrum to us.”
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