Allendale Townhship Civil War Monument (Allendale, Michigan)
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The statue features two generic Union and Confederate soldiers standing back-to-back with a crouching enslaved child underneath them. This child is holding a pamphlet granting emancipation. The Union soldier holds a United States flag while the Confederate soldier holds a Confederate flag. The Confederate soldier’s body is cracked, and nose is chipped. The statue is maintained by the township and paid for by taxpayer money. It was one of eight statues erected in celebration of Allendale townships' 150th birthday in 1998, located in the Veteran’s Garden of Honor. Recently, the monument has received much controversy since 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Monument type:
Statue - standing soldier
Artist:
Joyce Sweers
Dedication Date:
1998-07-05
Address:
Ottawa
Michigan
USA
Inscription:
Black child holds a document that reads, ‘Freedom to slaves! Jan 5 1863 AL’
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Conception Date:
Opening Date:
Material:
Size:
m x m x m
Creator:
Cost / Value:
Erected by:
City Council
Funded by:
City Council
Run by:
City Council
Indigenous Land
Peoria, Odawa
Organization/Curator:
Data Sources:
Blight, David, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge and London, 2001), p. 259.
Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge and London, 2001).
Center, Patrick. ‘The history of Allendale’s controversial Civil War statue’, WGVU News, 30 June 2020, https://www.wgvunews.org/news/2020-06-30/the-history-of-allendales-controversial-civil-war-statue.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, ‘Why So Few Blacks Study the Civil War’, The Atlantic (November, 2011), pp. 142-146.
Donnelly, Francis, ‘West Michigan War Statue: Celebrating slavery’s end or racist?’, The Detroit News, 21 July 2020, https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07/21/west-michigan-civil-war-statue-racist-celebrating-slaverys-end/5443450002/.
Kransz, Michael, ‘Controversial Confederate soldier statue in West Michigan will remain, township board decides’, MLive Media Group, 14 June 2021, https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2021/06/controversial-confederate-soldier-statue-in-west-michigan-will-remain-township-board-decides.html.
Levin, Kevin, ‘The Problem With Allendale, Michigan’s Civil War Monument’, Kevin Levin (blog), 1 December 2023, https://kevinmlevin.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-allendale-michigans.
Lobo, Arpan, ‘Lawsuit: Allendale Violated Free Speech of Pro-Racial Justice Residents’, The Holland Sentinel, 8 December 2021, https://eu.hollandsentinel.com/story/news/politics/government/2021/12/08/lawsuit-allendale-violated-free-speech-pro-racial-justice-residents/6415735001/#:~:text=GRAND%20RAPIDS%20—%20A%20federal%20lawsuit,the%20township's%20Garden%20of%20Honor.
Lobo, Arpan, ‘Activists Put Up Billboard Calling for Allendale Statue’s Removal’, The Holland Sentinel, 5 January 2021, https://eu.hollandsentinel.com/story/news/politics/county/2021/01/05/activists-put-up-billboard-calling-for-allendale-statuersquos-removal/43310213/.
‘Allendale Charter Township Historical Recognition and Preservation Plan’, 2004, .
‘It’s Time for Allendale to Remove its Confederate Statue’, Allendale for Equality, accessed 10 February 2024, https://allendaleforequality.org/#:~:text=About%20Allendale%27s%20Confederate%20Statue,States%20veterans%20from%20multiple%20wars.
Read below for one of our contributor’s reflections on this monument