Change the Name? Columbus, Ohio Removes Christopher Columbus Statue
Richard Moorhead
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The Mayor of Columbus, Ohio ordered the removal of a Christopher Columbus statue at the city’s town hall on Wednesday, removing an image depicting the namesake of his own city. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther, a Democrat, announced his intention to remove the Columbus statue- one of the largest and most iconic in the United States- two weeks ago.
Construction crews removed the statue from its pedestal with a cherry picker on Wednesday morning.
A 22-foot-tall statue of Christopher Columbus was removed from outside the Columbus, Ohio, city hall after the city's mayor called for it to come down. https://t.co/KXOxAPIUUf pic.twitter.com/F63b0OpXVD
— ABC News (@ABC) July 1, 2020
Vandals had previously spraypainted the word “rapist” on the statue of the explorer.
The city’s art commission had voted unanimously to remove the iconic statue, but neither the city council nor the electorate of the city had a chance to vote on the matter in a referendum.
The city has announced that it will be replaced with a new or existing that that represents “diversity.”
The city of Genoa in Italy, which is been the birthplace is the historical explorer and sailor, had given the statue as a gift to the city of Columbus in 1955. Big League Politics has reached out to the Italian Embassy for comment on the matter.
Columbus was born in the city of Genoa in the 15th century and began a career as a sailor and merchant at a young age. Determined to access the lucrative markets of India and China through sailing west after the rise of the Ottoman Empire prevented land-based trade with the far east, he entered the service of the Spanish monarchy and inadvertently discovered the New World in 1492. His four voyages to the Americas initiated one of the larges and most consequential movements of people in human history, and he’s commonly thought of as one of the most historically significant individuals of all time.
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