For centuries, we celebrated Christopher Columbus as the intrepid explorer who discovered the Americas — a symbol of the American ideals of entrepreneurship and innovation.
The story of the Italian navigator taught to generations of schoolchildren is shrouded in mythology. But for the Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Americas long before Columbus ever arrived, Columbus and his namesake holiday represent something much more sinister: the violent colonization of their lands and the brutal treatment of their people.
The movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been decades in the making. As a result of advocacy by Native American activists, many states and localities now observe the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of — or in addition to — Columbus Day. That shift has since reached the federal level — in 2021, President Joe Biden became the first president to formally acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ Day.