ALLENDALE, Mich. — A federal lawsuit alleges Allendale Township in Ottawa County violated the free speech rights of residents by blocking their purchase of commemorative bricks in the township's park.
The Garden of Honor park has bricks displaying messages paying homage to veterans and general statements advertising local businesses and celebrating high school graduation classes.
Tony Miller, a Black veteran of the United States Navy, said in March he submitted brick applications to honor the service of Black and Indigenous Americans in the U.S. armed forces and to promote racial justice.
The Navy vet says submissions included the phrase: "Black Lives Matter" or "Indigenous Lives Matter," followed by the name of a veteran.
In the lawsuit, he claims Allendale Township changed the rules for inscribed bricks and denied him and others to display their social justice messages.
Now he's speaking out saying he wants the township to be more tolerant
"Well, it was disheartening and heartbreaking," said Miller. "And this is a place, well first of all, it's called the Garden of Honor, and every application we submitted was either a veteran or like I said a person who was prominent in our Black history: Barrack Obama (or) Harriett Tubman. It was very heartbreaking and just very disappointing."
13 ON YOUR SIDE reached out to Allendale Township to get a comment from them about the lawsuit. In an email the township replied, "We received notification of a lawsuit via email and are reviewing the document with our legal counsel."
Now this park is no stranger to controversy. You may recall last year there was heated debate over removing a Civil War statue depicting confederate and union soldiers, standing back-to-back with a freed slave child kneeling underneath them.
Some people find the statue offensive, while others feel it preserves U.S. History.
In the end, the township board voted to keep the statue.
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