This past June, protestors beheaded the Christopher Columbus statue in Boston’s North End, ultimately resulting in its removal.

Statues of our nation’s founding fathers in other cities are also under scrutiny, because even as those founders helped establish a nation conceived in liberty, they held people in chattel slavery, while also creating genocidal policies against Indigenous peoples. Beyond America, citizens across the globe have targeted statues and monuments of explorers and political leaders of exploitative regimes, including Edward Colston and Winston Churchill in Britain, and King Leopold II in Antwerp, Belgium.

It is momentous that the Peabody Essex Museum will, for the first time, formally honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day through virtual programming, on social media, and even on our employee time cards. Hundreds of towns, cities (Salem just passed a resolution on September 24, 2020), counties, states, school districts and institutions across America are now recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the federal holiday that is Columbus Day. This shift in recognition and perspective provides an opportunity to bring more awareness to the rich and storied histories of this land that is inextricably tied to the first peoples of this continent and predates the voyage of Christopher Columbus by millennia. The museum's decision to recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day stems from long-held commitments to honor and cultivate Native American art and culture.

Though this movement has been building for many years, there’s a renewed sense of urgency amid the wave of more recent protests against the nation’s legacy of racism, particularly sparked by the murder of George Floyd by police. Renaming the day reminds Americans to demand, confront and embrace a more accurate and complete picture of the founding of our country. It invites us to ask ourselves, why are we content with only part of the story? Columbus did not discover what is currently known as North America. He and other European explorers and settler-colonists who came after him, enslaved, mutilated, raped, massacred and colonized the Indigenous people in the Americas, laying the foundation for even more waves of destruction that continue today. This is not a cause for a day of national celebration.

As PEM considers the role of arts in community-building and how our institution and staff can better serve and respond to marginalized communities, we have been working to center Indigenous voices and celebrate the ongoing vitality and resilience of Indigenous people. We have been working diligently to implement increased accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and furthering action through our renowned Native American Fellowship Program, currently funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Fostering the next generation of Native professionals in the cultural heritage sector through leadership training and practical work experience is an imperative responsibility to housing a collection of Native cultural heritage. In other words, our responsibilities to our collections do not end with exhibitions, programming, object stewardship and community outreach.