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“Columbus Day brings up bad childhood memories for Sandi Mason, an American Indian woman who recalls classmates calling her Pocahontas and squaw at her Minneapolis school.
“It wasn’t a good day for us,” she said Friday at Minneapolis City Hall. “We got teased.”
But future generations may have a different vision of the second Monday in October, following a City Council vote Friday to recognize Indigenous People’s Day on what is now Columbus Day. The city will still recognize Columbus Day for legal purposes, but the new holiday will be reflected on all official city communications — such as the city calendar and website.
The thump of traditional drumming rang through the halls as hundreds of activists gathered to commemorate the change. About 7,600 residents of Minneapolis — or 2 percent of the population — are American Indian, according to the 2010 census.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Clyde Bellecourt, a civil rights organizer. “For me, it’s been almost 50 years that we’ve been talking about this pirate.””
– Star Tribune, Columbus? It’s ‘Indigenous People’s Day’ in Mpls.
“We discovered Columbus, lost on our shores, sick, destitute, and wrapped in rags. We nourished him to health, and the rest is history,” said Lakota activist Bill Means. “He represents the mascot of American colonialism in the western hemisphere. And so it is time that we change a myth of history.”
– Minnesota Public Radio, Goodbye Columbus: Minneapolis makes it Indigenous Peoples Day.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #18 – Indigenous People’s Day.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
Creative Commons License
This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
