In One City, Columbus Day Now 'Indigenous Peoples Day'

The Minneapolis City Council voted Friday to recognize Columbus Day as "Indigenous Peoples Day" after years of organizing by indigenous activists.

Hundreds of Native Americans filled the Minneapolis City Hall for Friday's vote, Native News Online reports.

"City of Minneapolis recognizes the annexation of Dakota homelands for the building of our city, and knows Indigenous nations have lived upon this land since time immemorial and values the progress our society has accomplished through American Indian technology, thought, and culture," reads the resolution.

The resolution does not do away with Columbus Day, but instead adds Indigenous Peoples Day as an official holiday. However, all official city communications will say "Indigenous Peoples Day," not "Columbus Day."

Since the late 1970s, indigenous people have organized to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day, the resolution notes.

Columbus, who never set foot in what is now the United States, is widely credited with discovering the "New World," despite the fact that indigenous people were already living there.

Columbus, who landed in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, exterminated and enslaved the Taino people.

Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937, but Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota do not celebrate it.