We hereby petition Boston City Council and Mayor Walsh to direct that: (1) the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in the North End be renamed and (2) the Columbus statue located there and Columbus statues in any other public areas of the City of Boston be removed from public view.
City after city around the country is taking steps to remove statues and rename parks that honor the treasonous and brutal slaveholding confederacy. As statues dedicated to white supremacy fall, people around the country are also calling for the removal of statues of Columbus and the renaming of parks named after him.
Honoring Columbus is honoring the genocide of Indigenous peoples, millions of whom died as a result of the actions of Columbus and his men and the further waves of Europeans who came after Columbus. Columbus did not “discover” anything. Millions of Indigenous peoples with varied civilizations lived here for thousands of years, long before 1492. The Columbus statue and Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park are monuments to a man who butchered, enslaved and raped Indigenous people and did not view them as fully human. Columbus had his men engage in vicious acts such as testing the sharpness of their blades on the bodies of Indigenous people and setting war dogs on them. He also personally engaged in and profited from kidnapping and enslaving Indigenous people, including women and young girls who were sold into sexual slavery. The fact that Columbus launched the enslavement and genocide of Indigenous peoples and began the colonization of the Americas are his true and shameful legacy.
It is time to take down Columbus statutes in the City of Boston and to rename Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park!
We also demand that Indigenous people and organizations in the greater Boston area be consulted in renaming the park.