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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A statue of Christopher Columbus in Philadelphia stays hidden by a plywood field whereas its destiny is set within the courts, however the field has now been painted with the colours of the Italian flag.
Metropolis officers instructed the information station KYW that they painted the field protecting the 146-year-old statue in south Philadelphia’s Marconi Plaza with inexperienced, white and purple stripes on the request of Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents the district.
The brand new look got here simply in time for Columbus Day, the vacation now celebrated in Philadelphia and elsewhere as Indigenous Peoples Day.
Thomas DeFino, one of many residents who gathered within the park Sunday afternoon to have a good time their Italian American heritage with a parade and competition, welcomed the change, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“They did it for us — the Italians. It made us really feel a bit bit higher,” DeFino mentioned. “It’s to honor our heritage. They needed to pull some strings to color it.”
Whereas he appreciated the gesture, DeFino mentioned, he famous that the statue was “nonetheless in a field.”
“He ought to have been taken out a minimum of for someday,” he mentioned.
Mabel Negrete, government director of Indigenous Peoples’ Day Philly Inc., instructed the Inquirer it was “unlucky” that some Italian Individuals within the metropolis continued to have a good time Columbus. The portray of the field in colours of the Italian flag, she mentioned, “undermines intentions to maneuver ahead.”
Supporters in Philadelphia, a metropolis with a deep Italian heritage, say they think about Columbus an emblem of that heritage.
Mayor Jim Kenney mentioned Columbus was commemorated for hundreds of years as an explorer however had a “way more notorious” historical past, enslaving Indigenous folks and imposing punishments corresponding to severing limbs and even loss of life.
After protests about racial injustice started in June 2020 and a few targeted on the statue, Kenney ordered its elimination, calling it a matter of public security. A choose final yr, nevertheless, reversed town’s determination, saying it had failed to supply proof that the statue’s elimination was mandatory to guard the general public.
A lawsuit settlement introduced final yr allowed one other 106-foot-tall Christopher Columbus monument at Penn’s Touchdown on the Delaware River to stay in place with coverings eliminated for the foreseeable future, the Inquirer reported.
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