Columbus Day has been celebrated as a national holiday in the United States for more than 80 years. In 2020, it is being celebrated on October 12 but even though it has been around such a long time, many states are now boycotting the holiday.
The annual holiday got its start in 1937. It was to commemorate Christopher Columbus and his arrival to the Americas in 1492.
Most people are familiar with Columbus, who sailed on the Atlantic Ocean to find a new route to India. He was an Italian explorer who made four trips to the Caribbean and South America in a 12-year period. He has often been said to have opened up the Americas to European colonization.
Many nonessential government offices are closed on the federal holiday, such as post offices and banks. Most people would seem to appreciate a national holiday such as this, but Columbus Day seems to have a black mark on it.
Fourteen states, including Oregon, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska are now calling that day Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather than Columbus Day. South Dakota was the first to make the change, and started observing Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the 90s.
Aside from those states, 130 US cities are also celebrating it as indigenous peoples day.
According to the National Museum of the American Indian, US citizens can engage in the holiday in a number of ways. Those were posted in the Smithsonian magazine, suggesting: “to plant native to support healthy ecosystems; to read a book by an Indigenous writer; to attend an online Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration; to visit the museum’s Native Knowledge 360°; and to teach people ‘a more truthful history’ of Columbus.”
People have honored Columbus and the work that he did recently but his legacy was put to the test during the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States. A statue of Columbus was even pulled down in Richmond, Virginia.
Christopher Columbus Statue is in Fountain Lake, Byrd Park, Richmond, Virginia https://t.co/jvtRS0NjrN pic.twitter.com/EbyVXjS6ri
— Fight Like a Girl🎀Wear A Face Mask😷Covid19🇺🇸 (@megdcrad) June 10, 2020
After the statue was pulled down and thrown into a lake, a representative of the Richmond Indigenous Society, Vanessa Bolin, reported to the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “This continent is built on the blood and the bones of our ancestors, but it is built off the backs and the sweat and the tears and the blood and the bones of Africans.”