A recently enacted policy by the Minneapolis city council changes Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day.
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."
Columbus day always slipped up on me in the form of discovering the mail wasn't running and the bank was closed that day. Other than that I never really gave it much attention. But it must stick in the craw of native peoples to have that day memorialized every October. Good on my home town for doing the right thing. And I like that it was a unanimous vote. I could see myself actually looking forward to Indigenous People's Day events even though I'm so white my Dockers come in light tan and dark tan.