Over forty local activists, most from local indigenous communities, protested the city's Columbus Day Parade October 10th. One among them, known to many as Scribbler, was detained by police and taken to the first district station.

While Midwestern high school marching bands and corporate television floats promoted Columbus Day as the city's main day to celebrate Italian heritage, indigenous activists resisted through their cultural traditions using dance and ceremony, and others carried out a die-in, talked with spectators, and chanted along the route. A small group met at Columbus and Jackson, while more met up later at Buckingham Fountain.

About half a dozen activists marched near Mayor Daley for about half of the parade route, jeering him and causing a visibly upset Daley to make a quicker move to exit the parade and return to City Hall. The police quickly surrounded and handcuffed Scribbler, detaining him for swearing after goading a spectator into offering to be a witness. He was taken down to the 1st District under Commander Keating who was on the scene, although he was not processed and only given a citation. He will have a courtdate December 1st at the courts on the 400 block of Superior St.

Meanwhile, the reception activists got from the celebrants of genocide was mixed. Many, including onlookers and even people in floats agreed with the protesters on their main points, some offering not to celebrate in future years. Others hurrahed genocide, swore at activists, and one protester was even shoved.

Columbus was one of the perpetrator's of a genocide that cost at some 80-100 million lives of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, not to mention later causing the Atlantic Slave Trade which compounded that number. In Chicago, as in other cities, his holiday has been taken up by Italian-American communities as the day to celebrate their heritage, while in some countries like Venezuela they celebrate Indigenous Resistance Day instead. Protesters contended that there are many other days and heroes of Italian history that make better sense than a genocidal imperialist that died of syphilis believing he had gone to India.

Last year, after hundreds protested in Colorado and blocked a Columbus Day Parade, 350 were arrested, including Ward Churchill who is coming to speak at DePaul (see that post on the center panel). After a closing ceremonial event that thanked ancestors and the Mexica Creator for the survival of culture, protesters at the parade today vowed to make it an annual event, hoping to bring hundreds next year. Some indigenous activists joked that they might meet again for the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and many planned to attend the protest against the Project Minuteman conference on October 15th (in one photo an activist can be seen passing out flyers)

quoted from today's Chicago Tribune:
But not everyone found a reason to celebrate Columbus Day.

"Columbus didn't do anything but massacre natives of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Dominican Republic," said Sandra Sosa of Chicago, who was protesting the day. "It's not a problem with the Italian community, but with the celebration of this individual."

Sosa was among nearly two dozen protesters who staked out a spot in front of Buckingham Fountain and across from the parade's reviewing stand.