Cornwallis rally ‘a beautiful moment’ for activists
Posted Feb 4, 2018 08:04:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
On Feb. 4, activists Suzanne Patles and Rebecca Moore stepped on top of a concrete block where a bronze statue of Halifax founder Edward Cornwallis had been standing only a few days before.
“I’d like everyone to know Cornwallis is gone,” Patles announced. “And look who stands in his place – Mi’kmaq women.”
Her announcement was met with cheers from the group who gathered in Cornwallis Park to commemorate the statue’s removal.
Patles said the rally was both a celebration and a reminder that there’s still more of the battle left to go, including the removal of Cornwallis’s name from the park and throughout other locations in Halifax.
Patles and Moore organized the rally, which was initially meant to call for the statue’s removal. However, the bronze figure was taken down on Jan. 31st after city council voted to temporarily remove it from the park.
Mi’kmaq drummers joined Patles and Moore on top of the concrete platform to celebrate the collective efforts of the protestors and to honour their ancestors.
The rally also included a smudging ceremony to clear the area of what Patles described as lingering negativity that surrounds the decision to take the statue down.
Buffy McNeil attended the rally and said she does not want to see the Cornwallis statue return to the park
“Cornwallis represented the scalping of Indigenous men, women and children, and I think it’s really important that he’s removed and stays removed,” McNeil said.
She said that in Cornwallis’s place the city should put a statue that highlights Halifax’s minority population. She suggested Viola Desmond as a possible candidate.
Dawn Negus also attended the rally with her relative, eight year-old Parker Blaine Giberson. Negus previously attended the protest of the statue in July, and said she thinks its removal is long overdue.
“This is a huge step, to go from we’re not going to even talk about it, to it’s down,” Negus said. “Personally, I’d like to see it stay down. There’s been a lot of talk about putting it in a museum, relocating it, which I’m not completely against. But I think there’s better use of that bronze, frankly.”
Negus said that while she doesn’t have an exact idea of what should take its place, she said Giberson enjoys the children’s playground at Cornwallis Park and that expanding the play structure could be one idea.
Moore also likes the idea of putting the Cornwallis statue in a museum, where context would be provided for people to learn from.
“We hear a lot of people saying you can’t erase history and that’s not what we’re trying to do here, we’re actually unearthing it,” Moore said. “And I think a museum is an appropriate place to tell that story.”
While its unclear what comes next, Patles and Moore both said it felt great to finally have the statue gone from the park.
“It’s just a beautiful moment to be here,” Patles said, looking out at the crowd from the same spot where Cornwallis once watched over the park. “He had such a nice view. But it’s our view now.”
