Gregory Dowd, expert on Native American & early American history, quoted in Indigenous Peoples Day Michigan News article
With the addition of Juneteenth this year, there are now 12 federal holidays in the United States. Ten of them are clearly dates of commemoration—we remember together as a nation: Martin Luther King Jr., presidents Lincoln and Washington, those who died in war, the meaning of independence, those who labor, the ending of slavery and Columbus.Of all these folks whom we commemorate, Columbus alone was not in any way of “The People of the United States.” So it’s a good question, objectively, as to how he received a holiday in his honor in this nation—to which he did not belong.
- Gregory Dowd, the Helen Hornbeck Tanner Collegiate Professor of History and American Culture, is an expert on Native American and early American history.
