Indigenous Peoples Day voted in by council as ‘cleansing’ Columbus Day replacement
Members of local Native American peoples gather late Monday to celebrate a City Council decision replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous People Day. (Photo: Marc Levy)
Indigenous Peoples Day has replaced Columbus Day in Cambridge, a decision made unanimously Monday by the City Council. It means the next second Monday in October and those afterward will celebrate and remember native peoples who fell victim to colonization and slavery, rather than the man identified by speakers as introducing genocide to what was thought of as the “New World.”
An order before the School Committee will decide separately how the public school district will handle the holiday, Mayor E. Denise Simmons reminded officials and residents during the vote. “I’m sure this will be adopted,” she said.
Also left to be decided is what will fill the void for Italian-Americans who came to see Columbus Day as an appreciation of their immigrant experience – like many others’, filled with violence and bigotry before assimilation into U.S. culture. Past speakers such as former mayor Anthony Galluccio said they hoped a separate day to honor the immigrant experience would result.
But among the lengthy comment by residents and officials Monday, no one spoke in favor of keeping Columbus Day as a holiday, and some Italian-Americans spoke with a sense of relief about letting it go.
“The truth is the truth”
“I view changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day really as a cleansing for me as an Italian-American,” said vice mayor Marc McGovern, whose family is half-Italian and half-Irish but said he was raised in an Italian-American household. “I do not want Christopher Columbus to be representing my culture. So I don’t look at this as something that’s being taken away … I view it as making it a day actually can be proud of, as opposed to a day that I get off from school for someone who committed, even by those standards, some of the worst atrocities – and genocide – in world history.”
Fellow Italian-American councillor Dennis Carlone, who discovered as a teen that he also had some Cherokee blood, said, “The truth is the truth, and like the vice mayor I have no confusion on what is right in this issue.”
Before the council got a chance to vote, there was a series of citizen speakers, including many Native Americans and a group of eighth-graders from the Putnam Avenue Middle School. Returning speaker Moomanum James, co-leader of United American Indians of New England, foreshadowed the councillors’ comments.
“We don’t need to perpetuate the myth of someone who was a butcher and murderer. There are other people of Italian heritage – Galileo, DaVinci – who gave us things all of us can use, but not Columbus,” James said.
Dates back to 1970s
Cambridge is not a leader in taking Columbus Day off municipal calendars. Berkeley, Calif., led the way in 1992, followed by various cities nationwide. (Some, such as Seattle, opted to add an Indigenous Peoples Day to its calendar rather than replace Columbus Day.)
The effort leading to the Monday vote began in late fall, initiated by councillor Nadeem Mazen and Dennis Benzan, an attorney who then on the City Council, but was set aside in December. When the issue finally returned in March, it was decided to hold a joint meeting of the council’s committees on Neighborhood and Long Term Planning, Facilities, Arts and Celebrations (led by Mazen) and Civic Unity (led by McGovern). The meeting was also rich with public comment that fleshed out the history of the movement, with the Rev. Clyde Grubbs noting how militias drilled in front of his First Parish Unitarian Universalist church in the 1600s before heading out to fight Native Americans; Mahtowin Munro, another co-leader of United American Indians of New England, noted that the idea for Indigenous Peoples Day began in the 1970s, but that past Cambridge officials had declined to act on it when the change was proposed.
After the council vote, James, Munro and others gathered just outside Sullivan Chamber in City Hall to cheer and pose for photos to commemorate the policy win.
“Boston is next,” they announced.
At the May 26 meeting, McGovern added a provision to the order that the Cambridge Historical Commission should lead work “to properly recognize, in the written history of Cambridge, as well as the marking of historical sites, the indigenous people who resided on this land prior to the founding of Cambridge.”
Copies of the council’s resolution are to be sent to the North American Indian Centre of Boston, the Nipmuc Nation, the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay head, The Praying Indian Tribes of Natick and Ponkapoag and the Massachusetts at Ponkapoag Tribe – all descendants of people indigenous to the Cambridge area.
Peace Be Unto You,
I reaffirmed that there should be two days of celebrations, instead of eliminating one. I discovered that Christopher Columbus was of mixed parentage. Yes, Christopher Columbus was a man of color, He was born at Genoa, Italy. DNA analysis of his remains, done by forensic scientist at the University of Cambridge, revealed he was 100 % of color.
This fact that he was a half Blackman was not mention anywhere’s in the discussion on changing Columbus Day. I notice that all of the so-called Native Americans that where in attendance at these discussions, to change Columbus Day, I didn’t see a one that looked like a Native American, in fact they all look like Europeans or Caucasians. This was also a a lot of food for though for me. Maybe this was another racist trick to get back at historical Black leadership figures too? Both days should be recognized.
SOURCE: http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/23529/christopher-columbus-was-black-2/
Yours In Peace,
Mr. Hasson J. Rashid
Weekly World News, huh? Can’t imagine how I missed that one.
Weekly World News– for only the most discerning and complete reader.
Hasson– You may also want to check out Breitbart.com for similar fraudulent and sensationalized reporting.
Les
It shouldn’t be about one culture vs. another. As an outspoken Italian American politically involved in many different social issues here in Cambridge. I am absolutely in favor of removing Columbus’ name from a day of honor. Anyone who disagrees can easily research the issue to see the horrors committed at the hands of Columbus toward the indigenous people of America 500 years ago. I was the sole person who testified during the committee meeting with an opposing opinion. I have been personally attacked via social media (private, never publicly) for simply wanting to recognize both groups that have a history of being mistreated, abused. My father came to this country 100 years ago and often told me about the mistreatment, abuse and violence he and other Italian Americans had to deal with. Including harsh treatment during WWII. In 2001 the state of CA passed a resolution apologizing to Italian Americans for the harsh treatment they endured during WWII. All I was hoping for is a mutual day where both cultures could be honored and remove the name of a criminal from a day of honor. It appeared to this Cambridge resident that this didn’t matter and the issue was resolved long before the committee meeting. The city mishandled this event/decision. They bungled a teachable moment for ALL our children on how to compromise and work together for the common good of all.
Peace Be Unto You,
I’m sorry if you didn’t believe me when I said Chris Columbus was of mixed parentage (Black/White), it’s written right in the Genoa, Italy’s record of vital statistic, that Columbus was half black. By the way, the patron Saint of Palermo Italy in Black. Columbus found Black people already present in the so-called new world when he arrived with his crews members from Spain.
Remember Chris Columbus prove to the people of Spain and other places, that the world was round. Then in Spain and elsewhere, Europe wasn’t that far removed from the Dark Ages, filled with superstitious beliefs etc., including that the world was flat, and that one would fall off of it, into a pit filed with monsters,etc.,. Columbus changed all of that.
Queen Isabella or the Queen of Spain at that time cleaned up the street of Madrid, and other places with criminals and low lives, of all kind, and gave therm to Columbus as crew members on his initial voyages to the so-called new world. She wouldn’t allow Spanish Aristocrats to travel with him, not until they got ride of Columbus did she allow Spains Aristocrats to travel tothe new world as leaders, soldies, poicticiac, etc.. first to arrive were the criminal and riffraff, in an attamp to cleans Spain of its undersirable human elements.
It was the people that Columbus brought with him, and not Columbus, that caused havoc in the Spanish Islands of the new world discoveries. Yes the Spanish crimminals and riffraff were the main perpetrators of genocide,etc., in the Spain’s so-called new world possessions.
It wasn’t Columbus who destroyed the Aztec and Incas empires, it was people the the Queen of Spain filed the ships sailing to the new world with. Columbus didn’t go into so-called Africa and capture black men,black women, and black children, and bring them to the new world of Spanish possessions, it was the peoples that the Queen of of Spain assigned to the ship, that sailed to the so-called new world, as crew members ,etc., and who were they?
Another Italian named Vasco DeGama discovered the main land of the Americas, and he was an all white Italian, you don’t here the that bunch, that called themselves Native American condemning him? Some of these folks in the world discovered Christopher Columbus was of mixed parentage, and now they want deprive him of his greatness because he was a half blackman. I feel sorry for those folks.
Yours In Peace,
Mr. Hasson J. Rashid ,