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[QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 3541221, member: 405"]
The whole Columbus Day celebration was started around the time of WWI, when Italian immigrants were subject to some awful racism, like the Irish before them in the middle 1800s.  Columbus Day was intended (especially after their service in The Great War) to make them feel more included and integrated into American society.  Columbus Day was originally a day to expand the notion of our nation's Great Melting Pot.

Now, we are in a different place as a society, 100 years later.  Native people deserve respect, especially here in CNY, where the Haudenosaunee were the creators of the First Democracy in America - more inclusive, in fact, than what the White Man came up with in our own Constitution.  For example - women had not only "equal" rights, they were the heads of all the families.  There was no favoritism among the Five Nations (later Six) - no "3/5's of a person" stuff.  They were all equal in the eyes of the Creator.

I hope the statue is one of Hiawatha.  If you've never gone up to the second floor of the State Courthouse, directly across from Columbus Circle, there are some magnificent murals of Hiawatha, the French priests and explorers meeting the Onondaga and our local history "founding story".  It would be a great tribute.
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