NYC schools rename Columbus Day to fete Italians, Indigenous

NEW YORK (AP) — In a possibly futile effort to please both Italian Americans who celebrate Christopher Columbus and racial justice advocates who accuse him of genocide, the New York City public school system has designated Oct. 11 as Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day.

The double-naming of the school holiday happened Tuesday after a calendar for the 2021-2022 school year was initially posted with Oct. 11 labeled simply Indigenous Peoples' Day.

The change drew swift condemnation from elected officials, including Democratic state senators Diane Savino and Joe Addabbo, who called the renaming of Columbus Day “block-headed" and said it did “terrible disservice to a difficult and complex conversation.”

The city Department of Education then backtracked and changed the name again.

“Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day will celebrate the contributions and legacies of Italian Americans and recognize that Native people are the first inhabitants of the land that became our country,” department spokesperson Danielle Filson said in a statement.

The legacy of Columbus has drawn scrutiny in recent years, with cities and states around the country renaming the second Monday in October to honor the Indigenous populations that were decimated by violence and disease after Europeans arrived in the Americas.

But Columbus has fans in New York, where tens of thousands of Italian Americans march through Manhattan in a show of ethnic pride every Columbus Day.

“We have to honor that day as a day to recognize the contributions of all Italian Americans, so of course the day should not have been changed arbitrarily,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

The Democratic mayor, who speaks frequently of his own Italian heritage, said that neither he nor Schools Chancellor Meisha...