Indian

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    Photo: Dan Jurgens
1987
Enamel and found metal on wood
34 x 15.5 inches
Collection of
High Museum of Art
Museum purchase and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Description

They say my great-granddaddy on my mother's side was a full-blooded Indian, worked on the railroad. . . . Indians and colored people was forced to live by the New Testament in slavery. Before the Europeans came to this country, the Indians worshiped the Great Spirit, which was God. In Africa, before they knew about Jesus Christ, they worshiped the same God as the Old Testament God. They made them believe in the white man's religion to gain control over other people with different nationalities. Europeans always wanted to rule the world. The New Testament, if you read it, gives the Europeans advantages to rule over other peoples if you believe in it. Europeans was really atheist people. They didn't believe in a true God. They invented this Jesus Christ who is not God. With Christianity they pretend to worship the true God, but Jesus Christ is an idle God.