The debate to drop Columbus Day for Indigenous People's Day has divided communities and left politicians fuming over the so-called 'woke' revisions to history. 

Columbus Day is meant to highlight Italian Christopher Columbus's journey to discovering the West. But, in recent years, there has been a push to downplay his place in history and remove the holiday named for him because of the treatment of Indigenous people.  

Two years after statues of Christopher Columbus were caught up in protests following the killing of George Floyd, some cities are still vexed about what to do with them, as interest groups continue to fight about whether the explorer should be celebrated or sidelined.

File under “silly” the movement to force the rebranding of the day late-19th-century Italian-Americans christened to celebrate their heritage. They chose as their hero Cristoforo Colombo, the Italian explorer who, sailing for the Spanish crown, on Oct. 12, 1492, made landfall in what was then called the New World. Whatever one thinks of Columbus’ character — you won’t find a reflexive defense of him in this column — the man and his continent-connecting achievement unmistakably shaped world history.

Today’s woke perspective condemns Columbus Day as an unworthy holiday. However, a circumspect understanding of history offers numerous reasons why Columbus should not only be celebrated, but also why his qualities of character make him an exemplary figure worthy of emulation for all time.

Two years ago, as the city of Chicago reeled from a bloody battle between police officers and protesters over a prominent statue of Christopher Columbus, Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched an ambitious review of public monuments she said would be “a racial healing and historical reckoning project.”

This week, the Chicago Monuments Project finally released its long-delayed report recommending a series of new public memorials across the city and the removal of several statues that the commission flagged for honoring white supremacy or disrespecting Indigenous peoples.

President Biden on Friday became the first present to issue an official proclamation commemorating Indigenous People's Day.

The big picture: Biden's proclamation boosts efforts looking to shift the focus of the federal holiday celebrating Christopher Columbus to the contributions of Native Americans, AP reports.

He made an earlier proclamation for Columbus Day where he acknowledged "the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities."

Happy Columbus Day. There, I said it. And I mean it. I don’t wish you a solemn Columbus Day, nor a mournful one, nor still a guilty one. No, I wish you a happy Columbus Day.

It’s a day to celebrate the contributions of Italian Americans to our nation’s history. That was the original intent behind the holiday, after all, to elevate Italians at a time when they still faced marked bigotry. But more than that, it’s a day to celebrate a man whose example of courage and determination we need, as they say, now more than ever.

On June 9 in Richmond, Va.—two weeks into the protests following the police killing of George Floyd—demonstrators gathered at a statue of Christopher Columbus in the city’s Near West End. After a march of about 1,000 people, led by Indigenous activists in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, protesters threw ropes across the statue, pulled it down, rolled it 200 yards, and threw it into a nearby lake.

Christopher Columbus, the most famous explorer in history, was once a celebrated hero. Now, many consider him a villain, a despoiler of paradise. So which version of Columbus is true? Michael Knowles answers this question and offers some much-needed historical perspective.

He ventured where no other man of his age dared to go. He saw things no other man of his age had ever seen. He discovered a New World.

For centuries, he was universally admired as a hero. Now he’s widely considered to be a despoiler of paradise, an enslaver, and a genocidal maniac.

Oct. 12 marks the federal holiday of Columbus Day — or, if you live in jurisdictions like the District of Columbia, Indigenous Peoples Day. The debate over honoring Christopher Columbus as a consequential historical figure, vs. decrying Columbus as a driving force behind the genocide of Native Americans and transatlantic slavery, returned to Philadelphia this year. The city’s Art Commission voted in August to remove the Columbus statue from Marconi Plaza following protests and conflict at the site, including weapon-carrying vigilantes who claimed to be protecting the statue in June.