The Civil War monument in Allendale, Michigan is back in the news this week.
From The Washington Post:
As the township debated whether to remove the statue from Allendale’s Garden of Honor, [Tony] Miller and his wife had an idea for a more permanent way to mark their calls for its removal. In 2021, Miller looked into a fundraising program for the park that allowed anyone to purchase a brick to be inscribed with a personal message and placed there. He wanted one of them engraved with the phrase: “Black Lives Matter, Take it down!” alongside his nickname, Tony.
But Miller’s application was rejected, he said.
In December 2021, Miller, his wife and two other community members who’d submitted applications for bricks engraved with “racial justice-related messages” that were rejected filed a lawsuit, accusing the township of violating their free-speech rights by denying their “ability to express racial justice messages on engraved bricks.” This month, nearly two years after the lawsuit was filed, they reached a settlement.
Under it, the township agreed to install 14 bricks in the park, which honors military veterans, an attorney representing Miller said. The bricks will be inscribed with racial justice messages, including “Black Vets Matter!” They will also bear the names of Black military trailblazers, such as the Tuskegee Airmen. The statue, for now, remains in place.
It’s an unusual monument, so I thought I would take a few minutes to explore where it fits in Civil War memory. Hope it helps.
In 2020, I joined Dina Bailey and Ashleigh-Lawrence Sanders to discuss the controversy surrounding this particular monument and the broader debate over Civil War monuments.
The Problem With Allendale, Michigan's Civil War Monument