Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day

The Dighton Public Library is closed Monday, October 10 for Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

According to NationalToday.com, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October.

Collage made with images for Indigenous Peoples' Day
Photo from Province of British Columbia, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 GenericĀ (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The first state to recognize the holiday was South Dakota in 1989. It was introduced as a concept at a United Nations International Conference on Discrimination in 1977.

The day celebrates and honors the culture and traditions of Native People from around the world, not just in the United States. Fourteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day:

  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Iowa
  • Louisiana
  • Maine
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • New Mexico
  • North Carolina
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • South Dakota
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • Wisconsin