Minneapolis has designated the second Monday of October, the federal Columbus Day holiday, as Indigenous Peoples Day. The city council adopted the plan after hearing concerns that hailing Columbus as the discoverer of America is inaccurate and ignores the history of indigenous people.
Last week, Indigenous Peoples Day supporter and Lakota activist Bill Means told Minnesota Public Radio that the story that Christopher Columbus discovered America was "one of the first lies we're told in public education."
He expanded on that idea Friday.
"We discovered Columbus, lost on our shores, sick, destitute, and wrapped in rags. We nourished him to health, and the rest is history," Means told MPR. "He represents the mascot of American colonialism in the western hemisphere. And so it is time that we change a myth of history."
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The federal holiday has a long and complex history, including an 1892 proclamation by Benjamin Harrison and its establishment as a federal holiday in 1937. Many came to see Columbus Day "as a way for Italian Americans to be accepted by the mainstream," as NPR's Code Switch blog has reported.Read the full story HERE.
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