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Dancers from the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe join hands with spectators at the 2019 Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration at Penn Treaty Park in Philadelphia. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
The city of Philadelphia will no longer observe Columbus Day and that has organizers of the city’s annual celebration up in arms.
By executive order, Mayor Jim Kenney changed the holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Jody Della Barba, Secretary of the 1492 Society which plans the annual Columbus Day parade, is upset.
“To me, it’s bigotry,” she said. “[Columbus] also brought Catholicism to America, so it’s a double whammy. It’s against Catholicism and against Catholics.”