In Connecticut, Columbus Day is observed – or boycotted – in different ways

In the most contentious year yet about the legacy of Christopher Columbus, people in Connecticut took very different approaches Monday to observing the anniversary of his arrival in the Americas. Some cities, like Hartford, said it would likely be the last celebrated as Columbus Day, echoing a national shift in which hundreds of towns and more than a dozen states have done away with the holiday, while President Donald Trump endorsed it, promising to promote “patriotic education.”

Various community groups instead held events to mark Monday as Indigenous People’s Day, the holiday they chose when jettisoning Columbus Day as an outdated memorial to a genocidal slave trader.

A few tried to steer a middle course: Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo, for instance, proclaimed Monday as Bea and Peter Crumbine Day for their contribution to his town’s Italian-American community.

Small groups of of Italian-Americans in New Britain and New Haven held traditional ceremonies, saying Columbus was a vital symbol of progress and achievement.

In New Britain, about 40 representatives from local Italian-American groups gathered in the rain at McCabe Park in front of one of the last remaining Columbus statutes in Connecticut on public ground. Hartford, New London, New Haven and other communities removed theirs over the summer amid nationwide protests denouncing the once-revered explorer as a symbol of racism.

“I would like to say to the people who would like to change history — history is not for you to like or dislike, it is there for you to learn from it. It’s not for you to erase. It belongs to all of us,” Tony Lorefice, past president of the Generale Ameglio Civic Association, told the audience.

The legacy of Columbus came under renewed scrutiny following the killing of George Floyd, when Americans began to reject the traditional historical narrative and question the cost in Black and brown lives. Black Lives Matter protesters took to streets in nearly every city, waving signs, but also tearing down monuments to slave owners, colonizers and racists. Columbus has been a frequent target.

Participants gather at a statue of Columbus for photographs during a ceremony in New Britain to honor him. The statue is one of the last remaining on public land in Connecticut. (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)

New Britain has become a hot spot in the cultural battle over Columbus; the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition and Puerto Rican activists have demanded the city take down the statue, while Italian-Americans are pushing back against moving it anywhere.

State Sen. Gennaro Bizzarro, R-New Britain, took a slightly different view.

“Though the holiday bears his name, today is not about Christopher Columbus. It is about progress, it is about the meeting of the Old World and the new,” Bizzarro said. “It’s a day to reflect on all that we as Americans have accomplished since Columbus arrived here in 1492.”

But even though New Britain’s city government still calls the holiday Columbus Day, the local school system recently decided it will instead be called Indigenous People’s Day in public schools. Local Black Lives Matter members have supported that choice.

“We do not celebrate Christopher Columbus because he was not a good person — his treatment of people of color was very disingenuous,” Tre Brown, a coalition co-founder, told the Courant on Monday afternoon.

His organization was promoting an Indigenous People’s Day rally in New Haven for later in the day, and plans a celebration in New Britain next year, Brown said.

In Waterbury, the local NAACP planned a brief gathering downtown to call for the removal of the Columbus statue; the city kept it in place over the summer, but it was beheaded in the middle of the night and now the headless torso stands facing out toward the street.

In Hartford, a virtual event Sunday organized by the Free Center celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day with storytelling, music and conversation. The Hartford Public Library planned another virtual event for Monday evening with performances and a panel featuring scholars and people with indigenous heritage.

Hartford council members Joshua Michtom and Wildaliz Bermudez, members of the Working Families Party, were unsuccessful in getting the holiday formally renamed Indigenous Peoples Day, but the city is likely to choose some alternative to Columbus Day next year. A new task force will make recommendations as early as the spring on how to rename the holiday and what to do about the bronze Columbus statue the city took down in June.

The city of Hartford had its statue of Christopher Columbus removed from Columbus Green in June. Whether to rename Columbus Avenue is still under discussion. (Brad Horrigan/The Hartford Courant)

Kaleb Garrett, 31, of Hartford would like to see a statue of a local Native American figure, like chief Sequassen, who lived in the Hartford area in the 1600s. Or maybe a large representation of a dream catcher could help keep the land’s history alive, he said.

Garrett is African American and has mixed Native American ancestry of the Nansemond, Haliwa Saponi and Tuscarora tribes.

While he appreciates that the city of Hartford plans to leave the Columbus name in the past, he wants the city to affirm that many indigenous names and stories have already been erased or forgotten.

“I look for their footprints every day of my life and yet I can’t find anything that let’s me know they were here,” Garrett said.

Daily

We’re providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning.

Bermudez said Monday that activists and diverse, progressive communities are looking beyond what they call Columbus Day and examining what they’re teaching students about the oppressors and indigenous peoples of history.

While she expects political pushback to continue across the state and country, Bermudez also thinks there’s growing recognition of the need to correct past wrongs.

“There are these different groups that are out there who are trying to exert power over claiming a specific holiday and recognizing a specific holiday,” Bermudez said. “Well, let’s step back and let’s actually look at what’s in front of us and let’s honor the land that we’re all on, which is indigenous land to start with. So let’s start there and have these conversations.”

One of the few Connecticut cities to rename the holiday, New Haven celebrated its first Italian Heritage Day with a gathering Saturday at Wooster Square in which elected leaders and several heritage groups placed a single wreath at the base of the Columbus statue that the city removed in June.

Monday brought a more traditional, albeit soggy, Columbus Day ceremony in Wooster Square, said attendee and historical society member Fran Calzetta. Rainy weather prevented a planned march around the square but dozens of people still gathered at the site of the former statue to celebrate what is still a national and state holiday.

Calzetta, whose father immigrated from Italy to New Haven, said she expects organizations to push back harder in the coming year against what she calls “a lot of false narrative” around Columbus. “It’s one of the most fantastic things the world has ever seen that these two continents became known to the entire western hemisphere,” Calzetta said of the explorer’s chief achievement.