Michigan town will lay ‘Black Vets Matter!’ bricks by Confederate statue - The Washington Post

In 2020, Anthony Miller was taken aback when his wife showed him a photo of a statue in the Michigan town they’d recently moved to.

The statue depicted a Union soldier standing back-to-back with a Confederate soldier. It also showed a Black child knelt between the soldiers, holding a plaque engraved with the phrase: “Freedom to slaves!”

“It was mind-boggling,” Miller, 55, told The Washington Post. “I just couldn’t understand it.”

The statue in Allendale Charter Township quickly became a point of contention as communities across the country considered removing monuments and renaming buildings with ties to the Confederacy following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd. After seeing the photo, Miller, who is Black, joined in the calls for the statue to be taken down.

As the township debated whether to remove the statue from Allendale’s Garden of Honor, 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.

Adam Elenbaas, the township supervisor, told The Post that the applications from the plaintiffs “did not comply” with the program’s conditions, which had been updated to require that the bricks honor veterans, he said in a statement.

While the agreed-upon inscriptions will differ from his original applications, Miller, who served 12 years as a radioman in the U.S. Navy, described the settlement as a “small victory.”

“I would have liked to see more done, but in the same sense, it’s a step in the right direction,” he said.

Miller and his wife first joined protests for the statue’s removal in the summer of 2020. They attended township board meetings, where they urged officials to vote to take down the monument, which they considered to be racist and offensive.

The Millers also began visiting the Garden of Honor every week, and they laid a bouquet of flowers beside the Black child depicted in the Civil War statue. During those visits, they saw the engraved bricks encircling the park’s statues, monuments that each represent a major war. The bricks’ messages varied — some honoring veterans, a few commemorating graduation years and others with religious inscriptions.

In the spring of 2021, the Millers decided — along with two other community members they’d met while protesting the statue — to submit applications for bricks with “racial justice-related” messages engraved on them. One of Miller’s submissions read: “Indigenous Lives Matter.” One of the community members requested for “Black Lives Matter. Barack Obama.” to be inscribed. Another application asked for a brick including the words: “Say her name. Breonna Taylor.”

“We figured that if we can’t get the statue taken down, at least we can have our voices be heard,” Miller said.

Their applications were submitted between Feb. 19, 2021, and March 19, 2021, according to the lawsuit.

On March 22, 2021, the township board passed a resolution stipulating that the engravings could include only a veteran’s name and details related to their service.

The board rejected the plaintiffs’ brick applications, in most cases “citing the new content restrictions,” according to the lawsuit.

“My feeling was this is just so unfair,” Miller said. “It’s just another kick in the gut.”

In June 2021, the township board voted 5-2 to keep the statue in place, MLive reported. Those who supported the decision said the statue should stay put to preserve history.

A few months later, in December 2021, the Millers and the other plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the township — the start of a nearly two-year-long battle to get their requested bricks placed in the park. In the lawsuit, they alleged that the board had “changed the criteria for the engraved brick program so that they could reject” the applications.

As a condition of the settlement, the bricks with the revised engravings must be installed by June 2024.

Miller and his wife, who’ve since moved to Grand Rapids, plan to make the trip to Allendale when a date is set for the installation. It’s important, he said, to see the bricks placed in the park.

“It sends a message that you don’t give up for whatever you believe in,” he said.

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2023-11-30 13:00:00Z
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