Committee presents proposals for future of Civil War statue

A committee in western Michigan has proposed replacing a statue of a Union soldier and Confederate soldier back to back with a slave child kneeling between them with an obelisk or column inscribed with phrases and viewpoints from the Civil War era. The Holland Sentinel reports that other proposals made Monday in Allendale Township include replacing the entire statue with a commemoration to Black Civil War soldier Benjamin Jones or erecting Plexiglas panes around the statue inscribed with historical context of the war. Allendale Township is west of Grand Rapids. Calls for the statue to come down began last year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and anti-police brutality protests around the country.