Pittsburgh City Council votes to formally recognizes Indigenous Peoples' Day
UPDATE: Pittsburgh City Council passed a resolution on Tuesday to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day in the city. The vote was 6 to 3 in favor.
Original story below.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - In Pittsburgh and around the Keystone State, the second Monday of October is always Columbus Day.
Pennsylvania is among 16 states that are still recognizing and celebrating Columbus Day, but that could all be changing, especially here in the Steel City.
On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh City Council will vote on changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day. The proposed bill cites the change as the fraught legacy of Christopher Columbus and his treatment of indigenous peoples when landing in the Americas in the late 1400s.
Pittsburgh Councilmember Barb Warwick proposed the bill but did not respond to a KDKA-TV interview request.
Council President Theresa Kail-Smith responded to us via email, only saying that she is unsure how she will be voting tomorrow and that she needs time to review the legislation.
There have already been actions taken by the city of Pittsburgh to curtail the legacy of Christopher Columbus.
In 2020, Mayor Bill Peduto approved the removal of the Columbus statue in Schenley Park. He had the statue covered in plastic and a legal battle ensued.
Several Italian-American heritage groups took the city to court, but a judge ruled that the city was legally allowed to remove the statue.
As of this Columbus Day, however, the statue is still up, covered, and slightly graffitied.
At Atria's Restaurant in Mount Lebanon Monday afternoon, over 100 people gathered for an annual Columbus Day golf outing and lunch-in.
One of the people there was State Senator Devlin Robinson of the 37th District, who said that there absolutely should be an Indigenous Peoples' Day, but the tradition of Columbus Day should be continued.
"I think that our society is mature enough to handle moral ambiguity, said Robinson. "We can't judge somebody that lived 500 years ago by the standards of today."
Tony Ferraro, the Parade Chairman of the Pittsburgh Columbus Day Parade, agrees and supports an Indigenous Peoples holiday. Still, he also says that there was a lot of thought put into Columbus Day when it was made a federal holiday.
"I honor everything about indigenous people," said Ferraro. "But I don't think you take away one to give to another. In 1937, when it was named a federal holiday, there was a lot of thought behind it. There were a lot of good points of interest as to why we were calling this a federal holiday. How do you just take that and throw it away? You just can't do that. And I would encourage people to look back in history, look at the facts, and observe the holiday as it is."
