Around 60 community members, activists and volunteers convened at Pottawattomie Park in Rogers Park on Monday to voice support for the renaming of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Chicago and Illinois. Throughout the event and press conference, politicians and activists criticized Columbus Day as a holiday that celebrates colonialism, genocide and near erasure.
The op-ed also raises the idea of doing away with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and says tribes would be “freed” of treaties with the federal government – an idea some Native Americans oppose.
Drum beats and incantations rang out Monday morning in Pottawattomie Park while Marissa Garcia, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, performed a healing dance called a “jingle dance” in a traditional dress she made herself. Garcia was among a crowd of more than 50 people who gathered to celebrate and support the.
Monday s federal holiday dedicated to Christopher Columbus is highlighting the ongoing divide between those who view the explorer as a representative of Italian American history and others horrified by an annual tribute that ignores native people whose lives and culture were forever changed by colonialism.
The annual Columbus Day Parade returned to New York City on Monday after being canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic amid the boos directed at New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio.