Columbus Day - federal status, Indigenous Peoples Day replacement, and how each state observes it

Columbus Day is a US federal holiday on the second Monday of October. It is one of 11 federal holidays under 5 U.S.C. section 6103, observed by federal employees, the US Postal Service, and many states. Since 1989 a growing number of states and cities have replaced it with or added Indigenous Peoples Day. Both framings have well-documented historical roots, and both are presented below with citations.

The one-line summary

A federal holiday on the second Monday of October that began as a commemoration of Columbus's 1492 voyage, was institutionalized in 1934/1971 as a federal day off, and is increasingly observed in parallel with Indigenous Peoples Day, which some states and cities use in place of or alongside Columbus Day.

Origin and history

The first Columbus Day was organized in 1792 by the New York Society of St. Tammany to mark the 300th anniversary of Columbus's landfall in the Bahamas. Italian-American civic organizations - particularly the Knights of Columbus - promoted a national Columbus Day in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in part to commemorate Italian immigration at a period of widespread anti-Italian discrimination. President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation in 1892; Colorado made it a state holiday in 1907; FDR made it a federal holiday in 1934; the modern date rule (second Monday of October) was established by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1971.

The Indigenous Peoples Day alternative

The first Indigenous Peoples Day was proclaimed by the city of Berkeley, California in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landfall. South Dakota renamed Columbus Day to Native Americans Day in 1990. The movement expanded through the 2010s and 2020s. At least 14 states and the District of Columbia now recognize Indigenous Peoples Day - either in place of or in parallel with Columbus Day: Alaska, Hawaii, Minnesota, Vermont, South Dakota, North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Iowa, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin, plus DC. Several large cities (Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Cambridge MA, and others) observe it locally. See the Columbus Day vs Indigenous Peoples Day comparison for a side-by-side.

Italian-American heritage context

The push for a national Columbus Day in the late 19th century was led largely by Italian-American civic organizations, most prominently the Knights of Columbus. Founded in 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut, the Knights grew rapidly through the 1890s and 1900s and used the Columbus Day campaign as a vehicle for broader Italian-American recognition. The campaign ran at a time of widespread anti-Italian discrimination in the United States - including the 1891 New Orleans lynchings of 11 Italian immigrants and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927 - and the holiday was seen by its advocates as a public statement of Italian presence in the American story.

President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation in 1892 calling for a national Columbian observance on the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landfall. Colorado became the first state to make Columbus Day a legal holiday in 1907; New York followed in 1909. By 1920, more than a dozen states had adopted some form of the holiday. In Italian-American communities, the day was marked with parades, school programs, and civic banquets that explicitly framed Columbus as a figure of Italian accomplishment.

Federal mechanics: 1934 and 1971

Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1934 by proclamation of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, following years of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and other Italian-American organizations. The 1934 observance was on October 12, the anniversary date itself. In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved several federal holidays - including Columbus Day, Veterans Day (which was later moved back), and Washington's Birthday - to fixed Mondays to create predictable three-day weekends. Columbus Day was set on the second Monday of October.

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act was signed into law on June 28, 1968 and took effect on January 1, 1971. The change standardized the federal calendar around three-day weekends and was popular with the travel and retail industries. Critics at the time argued that it detached the holidays from their historical dates and made them harder to remember.

What is open and closed

Federal employees receive the day off. The US Postal Service is closed - no regular mail delivery. Banks typically follow the Federal Reserve calendar and close. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ remain open, though trading volumes are often lower than on a typical weekday. Most schools are open; some districts use the day for teacher in-service.

Retailers typically remain open on Columbus Day, and the day has become a minor shopping event in some regions. Columbus Day sales are smaller than Memorial Day or Veterans Day sales but are a feature of the October retail calendar. State and local government offices vary - some follow the federal calendar, some observe Indigenous Peoples Day instead.

International observances on October 12

Several countries in the Americas mark related observances on October 12 or nearby. These observances have their own histories and names - they are not derived from the US federal holiday. In much of Latin America, the day is known as Dia de la Raza ("Day of the Race"), a term coined in 1913 by the Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos. In 2002, the day was renamed Dia de la Nacion Intercultural in Bolivia, and other countries have moved to similar formulations.

Spain observes Fiesta Nacional de Espana on October 12, marking the anniversary of Columbus's landfall in the Bahamas and the linguistic-cultural unity of Spain. The Bahamas celebrates Discovery Day on the same date. Belize, Costa Rica, and several other Central American countries observe Dia de las Culturas ("Day of the Cultures"), a renaming in the 1990s and 2000s that reflects a similar reframing to the US Indigenous Peoples Day movement.

Why it is contested

Critics of the holiday point to the violence and enslavement that Columbus's expedition initiated in the Caribbean, and to the broader displacement and death of Indigenous peoples across the Americas that followed European contact. Supporters argue that the holiday has historically been used as a celebration of Italian-American heritage and of the encounter between the Old World and the New, and that the date predates the modern critique of European colonialism. Both perspectives are documented in primary sources and are presented here without endorsement.

The Italian-American defence of Columbus Day has a specific institutional history. The Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternal organisation founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1882, played a central role in lobbying President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934 and President Richard Nixon in 1971 to establish the federal holiday. The choice of Columbus was explicitly framed as an Italian-Catholic counter to the Anglo-Protestant cultural canon of American holidays (a project the Knights also pursued through their advocacy of Christopher Columbus statues in cities like New York, where the Columbus Circle monument was dedicated in 1892). In 2020 and 2024, Italian-American organisations including the Order Sons of Italy in America and the Italian American Museum in New York publicly opposed the renaming of Columbus Day in several cities.

The Indigenous activist critique has its own institutional anchors. The 1977 American Indian Movement (AIM) conference at the United Nations drafted the first formal proposal for a Columbus Day alternative; the 1992 Berkeley, California proclamation establishing Indigenous Peoples Day was authored by AIM and Ohlone community leaders; and the 2014 Minneapolis resolution that named the second Monday of October "Indigenous Peoples Day" passed in response to the American Indian Movement\uff19s decades-long campaign. The National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Education Association, and tribal governments including the Navajo Nation, the Cherokee Nation, and the Choctaw Nation have issued formal statements opposing Columbus Day as a federal holiday.

A third axis is the international comparison. Latin American countries have largely renamed the holiday. Argentina renames it "D\u00eda del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural" (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) since 2010; Venezuela renames it "D\u00eda de la Resistencia Ind\u00edgena" (Day of Indigenous Resistance) since 2002; Nicaragua uses "D\u00eda de la Resistencia de los Pueblos Aut\u00f3ctonos de Nicaragua" since 2007. Spain, by contrast, retains "Fiesta Nacional de Espa\u00f1a" (the National Day of Spain) on October 12, with the 1987 law explicitly citing the linguistic and cultural unity of Spanish-speaking countries. The Bahamas observes "Discovery Day" on the same date. The divergent framings - discovery, race, encounter, resistance - reflect deep differences about the period 1492-1600 and its legacy.

In US cities, statues of Columbus have themselves become focal points of conflict. The 2020 removal of Columbus statues in Richmond, Virginia; St. Paul, Minnesota; Boston, Massachusetts (briefly); Camden, New Jersey; and others reignited a national conversation. By 2024, more than 40 US cities had removed or relocated Columbus monuments since 2020, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center\uff19s tracking. Counter-proposals in several cities have included replacing Columbus statues with monuments to Indigenous leaders, Italian-American immigrants, or transatlantic migration more broadly. The disputes are unresolved and continue to evolve.

Legal status

Columbus Day is one of 11 federal holidays under 5 U.S.C. section 6103. Federal employees receive the day off. The US Postal Service is closed. Banks often follow the Federal Reserve calendar and close. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ remain open. Most schools are open; some districts observe it as a teacher in-service day. State-level observance varies: see the state list below.

State observance map

The following states and DC have official recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day in some form. This list reflects state legislative or gubernatorial action as of 2025 and is updated annually.

• Alaska (2017)
• Hawaii (statehood-era; observes Discoverers Day)
• Minnesota (year varies)
• Vermont (2016)
• South Dakota (1990, as Native Americans Day)
• North Carolina (2018)
• Virginia (2020)
• Maine (2019)
• Iowa (2018)
• New Mexico (year varies)
• Louisiana (year varies)
• Oregon (year varies)
• Washington (year varies)
• Wisconsin (year varies)
• District of Columbia

In other countries

Several countries in the Americas mark related observances on October 12 or nearby. These are independent of the US federal holiday and have their own histories and names - for example, Dia de la Raza in much of Latin America, Discovery Day in the Bahamas, and Day of the Cultures in Costa Rica. Spain and several Latin American countries observe Fiesta Nacional de Espana on October 12.

Columbus Day by the numbers

Sources

• 5 U.S.C. section 6103: law.cornell.edu
• Wikipedia, "Columbus Day": en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Indigenous Peoples Day (United States)": en.wikipedia.org