Dozens gathered outside DeKalb County’s historic courthouse Monday afternoon to protest a cannon with ties to the Creek War of 1836 before county leaders decide whether to remove the controversial relic.
Activists with the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights met and marched around what they call the “genocide cannon,” which has stood in Decatur Square for more 115 years. While it’s unclear whether it’s an authentic relic or a memorial to the bloody war that forced thousands of Muscogee people from their native lands, Monday’s protesters are ready for its removal.
“The cannon in my opinion should be taken up and cut up into little pieces and made into toys for the children. If it belonged to me, that’s exactly what I would do,” 78-year-old John Winterhawk of Athens, who is a tribal member of the Southeastern Muscogee Nation, said at the protest. “It doesn’t serve a purpose anymore aside from to remind us of the shame that we had back in that time and how many people suffered for that.”
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
Credit: Alyssa Pointer
They may soon achieve their goal. The DeKalb County Commission will vote Tuesday on a resolution that would remove the cannon and place it in storage. Commissioners Mereda Davis Johnson and Ted Terry, who sponsor the legislation, are confident it will pass and thank the activists for bringing attention to the controversial piece of history.
“There’s no ownership record,” Terry said Monday. “It’s sort of an orphan relic that’s sort of just existed there, and no one really thought to ask the question, ‘How did it even get there in the first place?’”
Aside from being placed by a local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1906, there’s little paperwork on the cannon’s ownership or its authenticity. The cannon’s own inscription calls it a relic, not a memorial or anything similar.
“We need to get it removed and replace it with something that does represent the people of Decatur,” Kayla Evans, a senior at Decatur High School, said Monday at the protest. “Something that doesn’t represent hate or white supremacy.”
If adopted, the resolution will place an ad in the county legal organ asking for the “rightful owner(s)” to come forward and claim the cannon once its been removed. The commission meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday, will be streamed on DCTV’s website at dekalbcountyga.gov/dctv.
