The couple also co-founded Baltimore's Madonnari Arts Festival in collaboration with the organizers of the Columbus parade.This resource serves to recognize the importance of changing the federal holiday Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day (IPD) and call for further action. She owns a Little Italy restaurant and cabaret space, Germano'sPiattini, with her husband, GermanoFabiani. Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke abstained.Ĭyd Wolf is pushing for the council to reconsider before taking the final vote. Kraft voted against the bill, as did Councilman Eric T. 5 meeting, the legislation will have to be reintroduced after the new council is sworn in Dec. If the bill does not pass at the council's Dec. "The objective can ultimately be accomplished, but there should be sufficient time to allow everyone's voice to be heard before such a serious and dramatic change is made."Ĭouncilman Carl Stokes spoke up from his seat, saying: "We've been waiting 600 years." "I would hope the council would not rush through this piece of legislation but would take it to the next term," Kraft said before the council's recent vote. He noted the bill was introduced in late October. Kraft, who represents Little Italy and other Southeast Baltimore neighborhoods, urged the council to give the public more time to weigh in on the change. "This is important that we can understand each other and each other's points of views and meet somewhere in the middle so we can operate as a great society," Scott said.Ĭouncilman James B. Scott said the students told him "they were tired of themselves and their generation being told mistruths" about Columbus. It defines indigenous peoples as "the many peoples inhabiting North America before its colonization by European settlers." Under Scott's bill, the name of the holiday would change on all official city communications and publications. … We believe in celebrating all the wonderful cultures that make America the greatest nation on Earth, but not celebrating one at the expense of the other." "It's a day when we honor those who have come before us - our parents and grandparents. The Colorado legislature had just rejected an effort to abolish the holiday in that state. "The celebration of Columbus Day for Italian-Americans signifies the enormous pride we share for our rich Italian culture, heritage and outstanding achievements," Viola said in a statement released in April. "The Italian-American community has Galileo and da Vinci - they don't need Columbus."įighting to preserve the traditional observance of Columbus Day is the National Italian American Foundation. "Columbus was really not a role model," Curl said. He said it also teaches people how to live in harmony with the natural world rather than celebrate a culture that "decided to go somewhere else and take over other peoples' land and resources." John Curl, a member of a committee that considered the name change in Berkeley, said commemorating indigenous people allows a community to spotlight respect for the Earth. Day and Presidents Day - and felt the explorer did not deserve the same honor.įrench, who has taught in Baltimore for 24 years, said the students felt it was "time to recognize and consider the truth, instead of continuing a story that is simply not true." The students evaluated other holidays named for individuals or groups - such as Martin Luther King Jr. Peter French, a City Neighbors social studies teacher, said his sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students were moved to action after reading diary entries written by Columbus and his contemporaries. The 15th-century Italian explorer is tied to the spread of disease, the initiation of the transatlantic slave trade and to violent acts committed against people native to the lands he searched.Ĭolumbus Day was first designated by President Franklin D.
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