Michael Brown: Change ‘Sam’s’ plaques

Regarding the July 8 news article “Graffiti painted on another Confederate memorial”: At this point “Silent Sam” is just a young university student who picked up a gun. The people who commissioned it for whatever reason are all long gone. The statue is not great art, but statues like that are very expensive. Also, some people get very attached to them (like old sofas).

Why not just change out the plaques on the base? Use the new plaques to dedicate the statue to all the idealistic young people of the world, of every era, naive or savvy, righteous or deluded, who have made deep personal sacrifices for a belief. But, please, also let there be an admonition to choose very carefully.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Michael Brown: Change ‘Sam’s’ plaques."