CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — As legislative proposals still need votes in both the City of Chicago and Cook County governments, supporters gathered Monday to celebrate what they hope will be universally recognized as Indigenous Peoples Day.
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) said she and others are looking forward to seeing how a changing City Council will handle the ordinance she co-sponsored to replace Columbus Day.
“Having holidays — being able to note, to mark, to celebrate and acknowledge together — is part of a healing process,” Hadden said. “It’s part of a recognition of the trauma that we’re still experiencing.”
A proposal before the Cook County Board has been deferred.
Dine Nation Member and Co-Founder of the Indigenous Peoples Day Coalition Les Begay said he wants Mayor Lori Lightfoot to follow the recommendation from a monument committee she set up.
“I don’t think we need [the statues] in Chicago,” Begay said. “Like I said, the committee was formed to decide what to do with them, and they said, ‘They shouldn’t be up,’ and I'm in agreement with that.”
In August, the group announced its suggestion that Columbus statues removed from city parks two years ago not be returned.
The press conference at Pottawattomie Park did not go as planned, though, with protesters interrupting Begay as he tried to speak to reporters.
After several minutes of talks with members of the Chi Nations Youth Council — upset over a mural outside the American Indian Center that Said “All Lives Matter” — the press conference moved indoors and was pared down.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Commissioner Brandon Johnson, CTU President Stacey Davis Gates and other leaders who were slated to speak did not.
Begay attributed the dispute to differing tactics but said he wants to work with them to make changes.
State Rep. Will Guzzardi says as a proud Italian-Americans he knows they could find a better hero than Columbus, who he called a “mass murdering slave trader.”
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