ALLENDALE TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A special meeting of the Allendale Township board has been moved to the Allendale Community Park bandshell at Tuesday 7 p.m.
The special meeting was scheduled after several weeks of controversy over a sculpture in the park’s Garden of Honor that depicts a Union soldier, a Confederate soldier, the flags of the two sides in the Civil War, with a black child at their feet.
The Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists started the discussion when they asked the board to take down the statute, calling it offensive because it honored a Confederate soldier.
Acrimony over the statue has built since then, with a series of protests and counter protests, sometimes simultaneous.
Images and video on the Facebook page of MACRA show heavily armed counter protesters gathering while demonstrators displayed Black Lives Matter signs
