LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Government offices and libraries throughout the Southland were closed today in celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day, or Columbus Day.
Government offices in Orange County shut their doors Monday as well, and there was no U.S. Mail delivery.
Most banks were also closed.
Pasadena was making an exception and keeping its main library open.
The Los Angeles City Council voted in 2017 to establish Indigenous Peoples Day as the second Monday in October, replacing the former Columbus Day.
Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, a member of the Wyandotte Nation who led the effort to make the change, said last year that he believed the historical record on Columbus was plain for everyone to see.
“It's time to no longer deny our past but reclaim our history because it's all there for anyone who wants to see it,” O'Farrell said.
The National Christopher Columbus Association called for the city to keep Columbus Day before the council voted to cancel it, insisting the explorer was not responsible for the genocide committed by the Europeans who followed him.
“It is a huge error to blame Christopher Columbus, the man, for (genocide) at all,” Patrick Korten, a board member of the National Christopher Columbus Association, told City News Service in 2017 as the City Council was debating the issue.
Columbus Day still is a federal holiday.
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