ATLANTA (AP) — There’s a problem with putting someone on a pedestal: Exposed on all sides, a hero to some can be seen as a traitor to others. So it is in Atlanta with a statue of Chief Tomochici, a Native American man who welcomed the British to colonize Georgia in 1733. The city plans to install it in Atlanta's Peace Park, where it would tower over statues of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights icons. But no one asked the Muscogee Nation. Their historians call the nearly naked statue historically inaccurate and disrespectful, and say it glorifies a man whom they blame for ushering in genocide.
Michael Warren/AP
Developer Rodney Mims Cook Jr. stands next to the statue of Chief Tomochichi he commissioned for Atlanta's Peace Park, temporarily installed outside his Millennium Gate Museum, on Jan. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Warren)
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