October 11, 2021: Baltimore Celebrates the 2nd Annual Indigenous Peoples' Day

Did you know that in early October 2020, the Baltimore City Council unanimously voted to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, or that in 2016, then City Council President Brandon Scott tried to have that important new holiday formally changed from Columbus Day in Baltimore City?

So today—October 11, 2021—is only the second time this important commemoration has formally taken place in Baltimore City.

Even more significant, today is first time that Indigenous Peoples’ Day is being celebrated as a US Federal Holiday, as President Biden formally shared this important news via a Proclamation on October 8, 2021.

The history behind the celebration of Columbus Day in the United States is longstanding. According to History.com, the “first Columbus Day celebration took place in 1792, when New York’s Columbian Order—better known as Tammany Hall—held an event to commemorate the historic landing’s 300th anniversary.” Later, “in 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday, largely as a result of intense lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, an influential Catholic fraternal organization.”

To learn more about the transition from the celebration of Christopher Columbus and his “discovery” to the commemoration of this day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, click here: http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2016/10/25-cities-abolish-columbus-day-and.html

And to hear the April 24, 2014 MPR feature of activist Bill Means share his own 45 year endeavor to make this change, click here: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/04/24/columbus-day-may-get-renamed-in-minneapolis .

Finally, to learn more about the alignment with the overarching missions and goals of the UMB School of Social Work, click here to visit the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (ODEI) https://www.ssw.umaryland.edu/dao/