KALAMAZOO, MI -- Kalamazoo’s school board last week discussed support and opposition to plans to erect a statue downtown honoring Abraham Lincoln, hearing from some residents with concerns about the idea.

Lincoln visited Kalamazoo prior to his presidency and a group of supporters have been working for years to build a statue in his honor and create educational opportunities around his visit to the city.

Two community members expressed concerns to the Kalamazoo Public Schools Board of Education Thursday, April 11, questioning the school’s role in funding the proposed statue honoring the former U.S. president.

Brionne Fonville said it was inappropriate for the school to hold penny drives raising money for the statue, citing racial and social justice issues surrounding the former president.

“Our public school system’s curriculum tells a white-washed version of U.S. history and Lincoln’s place in it,” Fonville said.

The Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Project is a nonprofit organization working to erect the statue in Bronson Park. Work began in 2011 among a group of supporters to honor the president’s legacy and provide a new educational resource in the community. The nonprofit was created in 2017 by former state Sen. Cameron Brown, a Republican who represented St. Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale and Lenawee counties in the Michigan Senate.

Brown said the project’s intent is to “bring value and allow for conversation."

The project’s plan includes more than just the statue itself. Organizers hope to hold symposiums and art and essay contests for young children to learn about the role race played in U.S. history, Brown said in an interview with MLive.

Lincoln came to Kalamazoo to speak out against the expansion of slavery, Brown said. The former president lobbied for the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing those in slavery and during a speech the day he was killed, spoke of his desire for freed slaves to have the right to vote, Brown said.

Lincoln died as a martyr for what he believed in, he said.

“All of us who serve on the project have a deep respect for the right of others to have an opinion,” Brown said. “I’m hoping they understand the big picture, and the big picture has value."

A video published to the project’s website explains the history of Lincoln’s visit to Kalamazoo in 1856.

In 2013, the Kalamazoo City Commission approved the steering committee’s request to place a privately funded Lincoln statue in Bronson Park.

The nonprofit is seeking about $300,000 to fund construction of the statue. Penny drives began this spring in Kalamazoo, Portage and Comstock public schools, according to the project’s website.

Kalamazoo Public Schools board member Tandy Moore said the district “pledged support" for the project and was holding penny drives, encouraging families and students to bring in loose change to help fund the project. Donating is optional for the families, Moore said.

Board Vice President Ken Greschak said Lincoln was a “complicated historical figure at a very complicated historical time.”

Greschak requested information on the history curriculum from school administrations and commended the board for having the discussion.

“Maybe it’s well past time that we as a society begin to look at our heroes of bygone eras through a new lens, new perspectives, improved perspectives,” Greschak said.

Fonville said the community worked hard to advocate for the removal of the controversial Bronson Park statue in April.

“Our community did this work so that native folks don’t have continue to feel disrespected, misrepresented and re-traumatized by depictions of white supremacy and historical violence against communities of color,” Fonville said.

District support of the Lincoln statue project undoes the work the community did then, she said.

Kirstin Simons-Valenzuela read a poem as public comment during Thursday’s meeting, expressing her concern with a statue honoring Lincoln.

“As we take down monuments dedicated to disgraced, white men, let us not erect more in deaf ignorance,” Simons-Valenzuela said.

Lincoln was one of several who spoke in Bronson Park during an Aug. 27, 1856, rally for a Republican presidential nominee. Though historians note that, at the time, Lincoln was a relatively obscure Illinois prairie lawyer, his 16-minute-long speech in Kalamazoo focused on the issues that would later define his presidency after his election just four years later.

Kalamazoo is the only place in Michigan where Lincoln made a public appearance, according to the project’s website.

Kalamazoo has memorialized Lincoln’s visit in multiple ways over the years, starting with a boulder placed in the southeast corner of Bronson Park in 1934. A Michigan Historic Site marker was placed in the park in 1957 to celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Lincoln’s appearance.

Brown said people need to look at the entirety of Lincoln’s legacy to America, rather than a “snapshot.”

“There’s opposition in everything,” Brown said. “That doesn’t negate the good, and we’re promoting the good.”

The project is an opportunity to teach students about history, while the former president’s values like honesty are an chance to teach values to children, Brown said.

Kalamazoo Public Schools Board President Patti Sholler-Barber, who worked as a social studies teacher for 35 years, said many former presidents and historical figures have “horrific things that they did and exemplary things they did.”

Sholler-Barber commended teachers for teaching a complicated subject and encouraging their students to be critical.

Lincoln is “hugely controversial, justifiably so,” Sholler-Barber said. “It demands community conversation.”

Several prominent community leaders have pledged to support the capital campaign, including local businessman and Western Michigan University Trustee Ken Miller, Kalamazoo Public Schools Superintendent Michael Rice, former city commissioner and Borgess Medical Center executive Moses Walker, among others.

The project also touts endorsements from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, Vicksburg and Oshtemo historical societies, Kalamazoo County Trial Lawyers Association, organizations representing sons and daughters of Union veterans of the Civil War and the Edison Business Association.

In 2013, the Kalamazoo Gazette Editorial Board supported the project.

Rice voiced his support for the project, according to a testimonial published on the project’s website.

“I am supportive of both the statue and leadership center, and look forward to the opportunity to flesh out ways in which such a center might aid in the development of Kalamazoo Public Schools students," Rice said in the testimonial published on the project’s website.

The superintendent remains supportive of the plans.

“I stand with the Kalamazoo City Commission and the Kalamazoo Gazette in endorsing the Abraham Lincoln project," Rice said in a statement Monday, April 15. "Discussions of history help us grow as a community and a nation.”