SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) – On Monday, Oct. 11, Syracuse community members gathered at the Columbus Monument in downtown Syracuse to celebrate Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day with a wreath-laying ceremony. But Mayor Ben Walsh plans to remove the statue due to the history it represents.
The Columbus Monument Committee, a group that supports the statue’s removal, helped host the ceremony. Committee member Edward McLaughlin said he supports the cause because he believes the statue has historical significance to Christianity.
“If you look at that last pic over there, that depicts Columbus coming to shore with the cross, with the Franciscans, and it all started there,” said McLaughlin.
The hour-long ceremony featured choir songs and speakers who explained the history of the monument. The ceremony was followed by a luncheon.
Later in the evening a Replace Columbus Observance event happened at the same site. The gathering honored Indigenous Peoples Day and featured guest speakers, a visual reveal and an original song.
The event was meant to support the mayor’s plan to remove the Columbus Monument, said Colleen Zawadski, who co-founded Women of Italian and Syracuse Heritage (WISH). She also said the event was geared towards educating people on the true history of Christopher Columbus and celebrating the Native American heritage of Indigenous Peoples Day.
The event shows “our support for replacing the monument and putting something in its place that honors Italian culture heritage without dismissing the trauma,” she said.
Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation and other organizations co-hosted the event along with WISH.
Zawadski explained that to WISH, the Columbus Monument represents an offensive and insensitive history to Native American people that needs to be corrected and that removing the monument is not “cancel culture.”
T-shirts and a sign displayed this sentiment at the ceremony.
“Revealing true history and ‘cancel culture’ are not the same thing,” Zawadski said.
Concluding the event, a film festival was held outside at the Everson Museum of Art Plaza to honor Indigenous Peoples Day.
