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#DecolonizeThisPlace Activists Storm NY History Museum on Columbus Day

Activists from the #DecolonizeThisPlace movement stormed New York's Museum of Natural History and covered the Theodore Roosevelt statue on Columbus Day, which was this Monday, and dozens of people gathered around the entrance to the museum in front of the statue to denounce America's colonial past. Americans used to celebrate the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas in 1492 as a special event that opened what was then called the 'New World' to European migration. However, a growing movement is denouncing this as a celebration of colonialism, and is calling for the day to be renamed as “Indigenous Peoples Day”. 26 US cities have chosen to focus on Native Americans. New York however has not joined those efforts yet, and activists voiced their anger by organizing the #DecolonizeThisPlace protest. Theodore Roosevelt’s statue was covered, as the activists consider it to be a “stark embodiment of the white supremacy that Roosevelt himself espoused and promoted”, according to their open letter. They also marched through the Natural History museum and took to the streets, chanting "Allen Locke" and anti-police slogans. The action coincided with the weekly Monday protest organized by ‘NYC Shut It Down’, which focuses on a different victim of police brutality in every demontration. This week the protesters called for justice for Native American man Allen Locke who was killed by a police officer in December 2014.