George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody has not only sparked protests about law enforcement funding and training, but revived debates about what historic monuments Americans choose to honor.
The latest test comes in Boston’s North End neighborhood, where the Christopher Columbus statue was once again beheaded. The defacement comes after a statue of Columbus was torn down by protesters in Richmond, Virginia and outside the Minnesota state capitol.
Lisa Green, a North End resident of Italian descent, said her own children and their peers react differently to the Columbus statue than she might have as a child.
“Our kids now, they learn a nuanced view of Columbus,” said Green, who recalls celebrating Columbus Day among other Italian American families in Bound Brook, N.J.
“They’re Italian American too, but they’re growing up in a different world,” she added.
Long revered as an Italian explorer sailing on behalf of the Catholic monarchs in Spain, Columbus’ legacy has received renewed scrutiny in recent years for his role in the genocide of Native Americans. Historical texts note that Columbus raped an indigenous woman and ordered his own crew to force indigenous people into servitude as his journeys paved the way for colonialism in the Americas.
Statues honoring Columbus were erected throughout the 19th and 20th centuries across the U.S. in campaigns led by immigrants seeking to highlight the contributions of Italians and Italian Americans. Those monuments are now caught up in nationwide controversies over the meaning of historical markers tied to white supremacy and colonialism.
The Columbus statue was erected in 1979 in the North End park, which was then renamed from Waterfront Park to Christopher Columbus Park. The statue was named by some of the neighborhood’s prominent Italians. At the time, the development of the park was seen as an homage to that immigrant community in an era when neighborhoods were being demolished in the name of urban revitalization.
Over the past two decades, the Columbus statue has been repeatedly beheaded and vandalized.
In 2015, the statue was covered in red paint and had the words “Black Lives Matter” spray-painted on the back. Boston Parks Commissioner Chris Cook told Boston25 at the time, “We encourage discourse, but this is not the way to do it you don’t want to destroy public property.”
Black Lives Matter Boston founder Daunasia Yancey told Boston Magazine the activist group was not involved but that she supported the statement.
“There are a lot of symbols of white supremacist violence and institutions in this city, state and country, and I think this is one type of action that calls attention to this and this is an action against it,” Yancey said at the time.
Green, the North Ender, said the beheading prompted her to launch a petition Wednesday calling for the city to rename Christopher Columbus Park after Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The Italian immigrant anarchists were sentenced to death in 1927 for the murder of two men during a payroll robbery, even after another man confessed to the crime.
“By commemorating Sacco and Vanzetti, we’d be giving Italian-Americans in the US and right here in the North End a touchpoint to reflect on how bias and discrimination harmed our ancestors,” Green wrote in the petition, also listing astronomer Galileo Galilei, inventor Gugliemo Marconi and progressive New York City Mayor Fiorello Henry La Guardia as other Italians that could be heralded in lieu of Columbus.
The officer-involved deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville sparked protests across the country, bringing a spotlight to racial bias in policing in the U.S. even in the midst of a pandemic. Their deaths have sparked larger, albeit not new, debates about reckoning with the nation’s history of racism.
The removal of monuments has sparked public debates, including among historians, though some cities have responded to Columbus’ impact in other ways. In February, the Chicago Board of Education replaced Christopher Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day, following the lead of Berkeley, California, and eight other cities.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, citing demonstrations and conversations happening in cities across the country, said the city would remove the statue and place it in storage while the damage is reviewed. During that time, he said officials will “take time to discuss the historic meaning of the statue.”
“We don’t condone any vandalism here in the city of Boston, and that needs to stop,” Walsh said during the news conference.
Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, a Democrat who represents Boston’s North End neighborhood, similarly condemned the beheading of the statue, arguing it’s the wrong approach to make a statement about the explorer’s legacy. The House Ways and Means Committee chair went on to describe the Columbus statue as an homage to Italian immigrants who made the waterfront area their home, calling it “a celebration of Italian heritage."
“While Christopher Columbus has a complex history and symbolizes many different things to different people, there is a lot more to the history of the park than just the naming of it," he tweeted.
A representative of Michlewitz’s office said his focus was not on defending the statue or the historical figure but on making sure that people who have volunteered in the parks and the community lead the discussion on the future of the park or the statue.
Michlewitz’s comments received praise from some constituents on Facebook and Twitter calling the statue and park a reminder of the contributions of Italians, while others raised concerns about Columbus’ role in the genocide of Native Americans.
Gillian Mason, an activist and Italian American who lives in the North End, said Italian Americans should be backing the Black Lives Matter movement, having had ancestors who were targeted by white supremacists barely a century earlier in the U.S.
“The most shameful part of Italian American history is we’ve forgotten the fact that we were once victims of white supremacy and we started to side with the oppressor,” Mason said in response to Michlewitz’s comments.
While the latest beheading has not been publicly linked to protesters, Mason said she doesn’t blame people who deface the statue as a statement against Columbus’ role in colonial history.
“In terms of the old guard who’s going to come out and defend this, I would just say, think again," Mason said of those defending the statue. "It’s time to get really clear about what our history actually is and to start doing some truth and reconciliation about the role we’ve played really as traitors to the multiracial working class in a lot of ways.”
“I think it’s a little tone-deaf to think that all the residents of this neighborhood who are Italian American are going to be proudly supporting Columbus,” said Green, who launched the petition. “I think we know more now than we did when we were kids. There’s more ways to celebrate being Italian Americans, ones that aren’t so morally compromised.”
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