Rachel Bozalis - Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day?

Denver, Phoenix, and the state of Vermont joined the growing list of places to celebrate Indigenous People's Day on the second Monday of October rather than Columbus Day. In the past year, fourteen communities across the nation have made this change, hoping to raise awareness of the lack of virtue of Columbus's interactions with the native peoples he encountered. In changing this day to celebrate native culture, activists hope to show that indigenous people's voices are important and relevant in today's world rather than celebrate the man who brought chaos to their cultures. The celebration of Indigenous Culture Day is not a paid federal holiday and does not always replace Columbus Day, as this change has brought about lots of Controversy.

After learning how horribly Columbus treated the natives he encountered and how his arrival brought the destruction of numerous cultures as well the introduction of the use of slavery in the New World, I was very surprised that I had been raised to think of him as a great hero. I am glad that the consciousness of the world is shifting to celebrate the oppressed rather than the "winners" as winners are often the ones to write history. This quite obviously synthesizes to columbus' encounter and interactions with the new world and the impact that they had, the surprise being the time span of almost four centuries before the truth was finally realized.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/us/columbus-day-indigenous-peoples-day/index.html