Show Down on Indigenous People's Vote in Cook County
By Jim Vail
The Cook County Board of Commissioners will vote October 5 on whether to drop the Columbus Day holiday and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day.
The battle is between a powerful political player the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans v. the people who support changing the name that will no longer honor a man who has symbolized colonization and the genocide of the Native American population.
"I did not think it would be this difficult," said Sarah Dennis, one of many collaborators of the Indigenous Peoples' Day Coalition to change the holiday name for Chicago and its outlying suburbs.
Dennis worked with thousands of other citizens to change the holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Days in the Chicago Public Schools (success in Feb. 2020). She spoke to the Chicago Board of Education along with dozens of others numerous times along with CPS students such as my students who noted Columbus was a cruel slave trader in search of gold.
While the Italian lobbying machine has kept Mayor Lori Lightfoot from supporting the holiday name change at the City of Chicago level, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle who ran and lost to Lightfoot in the last election, supports the name change.
However, there are currently only five county commissioners who support the name change despite over 4,000 emails and 7,000 people who signed a petition to support the change, Dennis said.
The question is whether or not the vote should take place if they know it will not pass. The Indigenous People's Day name change needs at least nine supporters or as few as eight or seven if a commissioner(s) votes present rather than take a stand.
This has led to a possible compromise where it is expected that someone will put forward a motion for the holiday to be named Indigenous Peoples' Day and Reconciliation Day that would include not only the Native American recognition, but other wronged people in this country including African Americans and discriminated peoples such as the Italians in decades past and others like Japanese Americans during WWII.
Ugly politics has played a big role in this battle to simply change a name that few if any dispute is equated to genocide and slavery.
While over 960 public comments have been made to support the name change at the county level, the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans have not filed one public comment, Coalition organizers said.
In fact, several prominent Italian Americans support honoring the Native population here and not Columbus, including Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, Illinois State Representative Will Guzzardi and Alderman Daniel LaSpata.
However, what derailed the first planned vote on the name change in the Cook County Board was a story that appeared nationally about black people called the Freedman whose ancestors were enslaved by Native Americans in 5 tribes of the southeast. They demanded rights in the current Tribal bylaws and want to be included in their roles and be eligible for benefits reserved for Native Americans from the federal government such as Covid relief, vaccines at the Indian health center and financial assistance.
Commissioner Stanley Moore was especially vocal on this subject and the Chicago Tribune highlighted his protests against honoring the Native peoples because of the wrong they did to his ancestors.
There are no federally recognized Native American tribes with tribal land in Illinois and most urban Natives moved here from reservations during the Urban Relocation Program. There were many Native Americans living in Uptown where the American Indian Center was located until gentrification drove them out.
"We don't know if we still have the votes," Coalition organizer Les Begay said. "Such unbelievable show of support and yet most of the Commissioners seem not to be budging. It's still kind of up in the air."
The Coalition noted that 175 organizations have signed on to the Indigenous People's Day name change for Cook County including the Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU, the Illinois Organization of Women and the Democrat Socialists of America or DSA. They have also held several virtual town hall meetings.
The Coalition feels like their battle is similar to a poker game because many commissioners have not stated publicly if they support the name change. Could it be hush money v. what the people want who voted for them? There has been no active public support against the name change other than the lobbying efforts of the Joint Civic Italian Committee. Three commissioners changed their yes votes to no, including one who represents the Little Italy section of Chicago, and Frank Aguilar, who himself is of indigenous American ancestry, but was appointed a commissioner thanks to the Italian lobby. The Italians have offered no public record for testimonies on behalf of keeping it Columbus Day except for at the public hearing in June.
County commissioner Larry Suffredin organized a townhall meeting about the name change in which he invited one-third Indigenous supporters, one-third Italian supporters and one-third Freeman supporters. Coalition organizers said it was awful and there was no actual discussion of the issues.
The Indigenous Peoples' Day Coalition - Illinois Facebook post from Sept 30 includes these words:
"The VOTE is on Tues Oct 5th! It MAY NOT pass! PLEASE spare 1-2 minutes to go to bit.ly/IPDOct4 & SHARE the instructions/graphic with friends!
"This holiday would honor and celebrate the 65,000 Native people in Cook County, their ancestors/the traditional custodians of the land on which we reside and occupy, as well as people of the 574 Federally recognized tribes in the USA, the First Nations people of Canada, and Indigenous People of Central and South America.
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