For decades, the United States has celebrated the second Monday of October as a federal holiday, an “annual reaffirmation by the American people of their faith in the future, a declaration of willingness to face with confidence the imponderables of unknown tomorrows,” according to a Senate report in 1968, the year Congress made Columbus Day a federal affair.
But in some North Dakota cities, we are officially recognizing a different holiday: Indigenous Peoples' Day.
Fargo approved a resolution in 2015 to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day. The Grand Forks City Council unanimously voted to replace the holiday in 2020. These cities are not alone. Approximately 216 cities have renamed Columbus Day or adopted Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and more than 20 states observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Efforts to ditch Columbus Day continue to grow, thanks to the famed navigator’s increasingly problematic historical reputation. In 2021, President Biden issued the first presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
While Christopher Columbus has been immortalized for “discovering” the New World, the term generally used to refer to the modern-day Americas, Columbus thought he’d arrived in India and named the people he found already living here “Indians.”
The name, of course, stuck. But more problematic than this misidentification was the European settlers that followed. Native Americans were first pushed out of the East and later the West. Through a series of notorious atrocities, including the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee, the United States adopted an official expansionist policy of discriminating against Native Americans in favor of encouraging white settlers in their territories. This policy led to the subjugation, oppression, and death of many Native Americans. The effects are still being felt by Native Americans.
Through honoring the history and culture of Native Americans today and every day, the ACLU of North Dakota works to recognize the dishonor in our past and help to remedy the discrimination against Native Americans today.
The ACLU is committed to defending the rights of Native Americans and tribes to be free from discrimination and governmental abuse of power, whether the government be federal, state, or tribal.
Indigenous Justice work at the ACLU seeks to support and advance tribal sovereignty through culturally authentic and Indigenous-centered legal, policy, advocacy, and organizing work designed to dismantle colonial systems of oppression. We strive to honor and, when possible, integrate Indigenous worldviews and values into our approaches and strategies.
Over the years, the ACLU has filed important lawsuits challenging discrimination against Native American families in education, voting, and the child welfare system. Most recently, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with the ACLU of North Dakota and multiple ACLU state affiliates, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the court to uphold the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a landmark victory in Brackeen v. Haaland for tribal sovereignty by rejecting all the constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), legislation that seeks to ensure that Native families stay together, and that Native children are raised by tribal members.
