IN 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Columbus Day a federal holiday. For Roosevelt, as for many Americans, Columbus was a “brave navigator” who struggled “against opponents who had belittled his great plan and thwarted its execution.”
However, many Native Americans believe Columbus represents the conquest of the continent by Europeans and the resulting death or displacement of millions of Indigenous people. For decades, prominent Native American groups have called on states, localities, and the federal government to abandon the celebration of Columbus Day
Over time, a perspective that takes Native American people’s views into account has gained wider acceptance. Seventeen states now have a holiday honoring Native Americans, and a handful have entirely replaced the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous People’s Day. In 2021, President Biden issued an official proclamation of Indigenous People’s Day, an important step in establishing a federal holiday.
This movement has reached the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, named after the Native American tribe that resided in what is now Greater Boston. Today, 28 Massachusetts cities and towns celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. The Massachusetts Legislature is considering a bill that would rename Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day statewide. The legislation has more than 50 co-sponsors, and Gov. Maura Healey has signaled she would sign it if it reached her desk.
But the bill is currently languishing in the Legislature, with no schedule for an up-or-down vote. It seems unlikely to be enacted into law this session.
The Bay State has a well-deserved reputation for progressive leadership. It is one of the only states in the nation to elect both an African American senator and governor as well as an LGBTQ+ governor. Massachusetts was the first state to recognize same-sex marriage and has some of the nation’s strictest gun control laws.
For most Massachusetts residents, the stakes of the bill to replace Columbus Day are low — it will not increase taxes, establish any new programs, or expand the state bureaucracy. So why is legislation to establish Indigenous People’s Day — and replace Columbus Day — facing such resistance?
A likely reason is that state legislators are hearing from constituents who oppose the change. As it turns out, when it comes to this issue, many Massachusetts residents are more conservative than the state’s progressive reputation would suggest.
Our recent University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll shows that, while 41 percent of residents say they support “renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day,” 35 percent opposed it, and another 24 percent had no preference. That is hardly a ringing public endorsement.
The online poll interviewed 700 Massachusetts residents from October 3 to October 10 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points.
And far from drawing consensus, the proposal to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day fractures Massachusetts public opinion on demographic, political, and ideological fault lines.
Older residents are much more likely to oppose renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day than younger residents. Whites are much more skeptical than people of color. Republicans overwhelmingly oppose the idea, while a majority of Democrats support it. Conservatives hate the proposed change; liberals favor it.
What’s going on?
Given the state’s history of settler colonialism and the resulting displacement or death of Native people, it’s impossible to disentangle the name of the holiday from race. Thus, we might expect attitudes toward whether the date should be celebrated as “Columbus Day” or memorialized as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” to be closely connected with Massachusetts residents’ racial attitudes. This is especially true today, when racial attitudes are tightly interconnected with Americans’ partisan and ideological identities.
To measure racial animus, we asked Massachusetts residents on our recent survey to indicate their agreement with the Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy (FIRE) scale, a set of statements that measure generalized racial attitudes. The three statements provided were: “White people in the US have certain advantages because of the color of their skin;” “Racial problems in the US are rare, isolated situations;” and “I am angry that racism exists.” Those who deny white people’s advantages and the prevalence of racism, and do not express anger about racism, are considered to have greater racial prejudice.
Among Massachusetts adults who express the lowest racial prejudice in our sample, only 7 percent oppose renaming Columbus Day. But among those who express the highest racial prejudice close to three in four (74 percent) oppose it.
This divide holds even when we take into consideration respondents’ demographic characteristics and partisan and ideological identities. We find the same connection between opposition to renaming Columbus Day and racial attitudes in two of our previous surveys, conducted in October 2023 and May 2024, as well.
Put simply, racial prejudice matters.
Our data suggest that for many Massachusetts residents renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People’s Day is about more than a name change. It’s about whether the state will recognize the injustices that settler colonists carried out against Native peoples. And while a plurality of Massachusetts residents supports this, it leaves others feeling uncomfortable or upset.
The upshot for proponents is to make the case — to state legislators and Commonwealth residents — that changing the name of the state holiday represents the best features of Massachusetts culture: inclusiveness, representativeness, and commitment to democracy. From this perspective, the name change affirms, rather than challenges, the core values of the Commonwealth.
And there’s reason to hope that public arguments such as these can make a difference. Research shows that appeals to common values and identities can help reduce political divisions.
So let’s have the conversation about changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We’re optimistic that, with a little encouragement, a majority of Commonwealth residents will endorse this needed change.
Adam Eichen is a PhD student in political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a graduate research fellow for the UMass Poll. Jesse Rhodes is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the UMass Poll. Tatishe Nteta is provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and director of the UMass Poll.
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