The city of Phoenix has officially adopted Indigenous People’s Day, replacing Columbus Day, making it the largest city in the nation to do so.
The celebration will take place annually on the second Monday in October.
This measure was passed with the help of Phoenix’s brand new subcommittee for Sustainability, Housing, Efficiency and Neighborhoods, which just met for the first time in September.
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The Indigenous People’s Day movement is a nationwide campaign, which opposes Columbus Day as a national holiday because they feel it discounts the contributions of the Native Americans to the colonization and innovations of America.
The city of Phoenix will still have Columbus Day on their calendar, however the group behind passing the measure plans on working to have that changed as soon as possible.
An excerpt from the Facebook page called “Indigenous People’s Day Arizona” says, “This movement has started as a replacement to Columbus Day. As of recently all over America cities and schools have been replacing the day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Why, you may ask. Because every year our youth are being taught that our land was discovered by a rapist/murderer, which completely erases Indigenous knowledge and our way of life. The question comes down to, as Indigenous People do we waste our energies trying to change a society that was built upon the genocide of our people? There is now right answer, with our people flocking to cities and sending children to American public schools we have to recognize how much of our Indigenous identity is threatened.”
