Kalamazoo, Michigan (AP)

A 65-year-old statue that contains the kneeling figure of an American Indian is drawing criticism from some area residents.

Opponents of the statue presented petitions with what they said were 500 signatures when they appeared before the Kalamazoo City Commission during late November. The petitions ask city leaders to remove and relocate the statue in Bronson Park’s central fountain.

The statue, “The Fountain of the Pioneers” by Alfonso Iannelli, shows an American Indian kneeling before a white settler who holds a raised stick over the prostrate figure.

Local activist Jeanne Baraka-Love says the statue is a “monument to evil subjugation, the violent removal of the people who were first on this land.”

“Ethnic and cultural disrespect is an ugly seed,” Baraka-Love told commissioners. “This is a petition for the removal and replacement of that statue across the street. It should be put someplace else with a plaque that explains the history.”

The Kalamazoo County Chamber of Commerce, Galilee Baptist Church and Kalamazoo YWCA also joined the call for the statue’s removal, the Kalamazoo Gazette reported.

Some other speakers defended the statue.

Resident Pam O’Conner said commissioners should avoid becoming “historical revisionists.”

“Good art should elicit many interpretations from many people,” O’Conner said. “This statue was not meant to celebrate aggression against Native Americans. It’s a reminder of what happened, not a celebration. I think it needs to be there precisely for the same reasons some people feel it needs to go.”

According to historical records, the park has a long and storied past.

“From its creation, Bronson Park has been the site of celebrations and public meetings,” according to the Kalamazoo Public Library’s Web site. “In 1856, Abraham Lincoln, then an attorney, spoke at a political rally in the park. In later years, Stephen A. Douglas, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, and both John and Robert Kennedy spoke to assembled crowds, as the Potawatomi Indians had, from the mound near the southwest corner of the park.”

Historical records say Kalamazoo County’s Potawatomi Indians were rounded up in the early 1800s and moved to a camp, then shipped by railroad to Kansas.

At the statue’s 1940 unveiling, Iannelli said it depicted the “advance of the pioneers” and the Indian was shown in “a posture of noble resistance, yet being absorbed as the white man advances.”

On the Net:

Kalamazoo Public Library’s Web page on Bronson Park:

http://www.kpl.gov/collections/LocalHistory/AllAbout/parks/BronsonPa rk/BronsonPark.aspx

Information from: Kalamazoo Gazette

http://www.mlive.com/kzgazette