Trump says Columbus Day will now just be Columbus Day

President Donald Trump made clear Sunday that he would not follow his predecessor s practice of recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day in October accusing Democrats of denigrating the explorer s legacy as he pressed his campaign to restore what he argues are traditional American icons Democrat Joe Biden was the first president to mark Indigenous Peoples Day issuing a proclamation in that celebrated the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples and recognize their inherent sovereignty The proclamation noted that America was conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people but that promise we have never fully lived up to That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began Trump on Sunday used a social media post to declare I m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes He disclosed on his Truth Social site that the Democrats did everything doable to destroy Christopher Columbus his reputation and all of the Italians that love him so much The federal holiday the second Monday in October was still known as Columbus Day during Biden s term but also as Indigenous Peoples Day That s been a longtime goal of activists who demanded to shift the focus from commemorating Columbus navigation to the Americas to his and his successors exploitation of the indigenous people he encountered there Though Trump has long objected to telling the country s history through a lens of diversity and oppression the holiday he seeks to restore to its primacy was added to the calendar as a nod to the country s growing diversity Columbus expeditions never landed on the North American mainland let alone any of the places that would become the states But the native of Genoa became increasingly commemorated in the United States as Italian immigrants flocked to the country and politicians sought to win their promotion Indeed it was the lynching of Italian-American immigrants in New Orleans in that led to the first Columbus Day celebration in the United States led the following year by President Benjamin Harrison President Franklin D Roosevelt designated Columbus Day as a national holiday in Trump has long complained about Democrats tearing down statues of Columbus a complaint he made again in Sunday s post In he spoke out against a review of the -foot-tall statue of the explorer in New York s Columbus Circle that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio had ordered It remains in place in the current era but other statues have been defaced or torn down In Trump s administration paid to restore a Columbus statue in Baltimore that was dumped in the harbor during protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis Source