10/09/2023
Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day 2023.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day - which occurs on the second Monday in October in many parts of the United States - honors the histories, cultures, and perspectives of Indigenous peoples and their ancestors who lived on the land now known as North America. They existed in these areas for thousands of years before the first European explorers arrived.
A Brief History of Indigenous Peoples’ Day:
Dr. Arthur Caswell Parker, a member of the Seneca Nation, was the director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Science (now the Rochester Museum & Science Center) from 1924 to 1945 and an early proponent of establishing a day to honor Indigenous peoples. He convinced the Boy Scouts of America to observe a day for “First Americans” from 1912 to 1915.
In 1914, Rev. Red Fox James, now presumed to be a member of the Blackfeet Nation, campaigned for a national holiday to honor Indigenous peoples, traveling more than 4,000 miles on horseback to seek support from state governors. On December 14, 1915, he presented endorsements from 24 governors to President Woodrow Wilson at the White House.
Also in 1915, the president of the American Indian Association declared “American Indian Day” on the second Saturday of May each year. New York was one of the first states to officially proclaim this observance on May 13, 1916. Other states celebrated on the fourth Friday in September.
In 1977, during the United Nations International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, an “International Day of Solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas,” to be observed on October 12, was proposed as a national holiday.
In 1990, South Dakota became the first state to replace Columbus Day (the second Monday in October) with Native Americans’ Day as an official state holiday.
In 1992, Berkeley, California, became the first city to observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day officially. This coincided with the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492.
Photo caption: "Dancers celebrate at the 49th annual United Tribes Pow Wow in Bismark, ND, in 2018." Photo by Pierre Jean Durieu/Shutterstock
