Crime & Safety
Remove Worcester Christopher Columbus Statue, Councilor Asks
"I've held my tongue, for perhaps longer than I should have," Councilor Sarai Rivera said Wednesday of the Union Station Columbus statue.
WORCESTER, MA —One day after it was vandalized with the word "genocide" scrawled in red paint, a Worcester City Council is calling for the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in front of Union Station.
Councilor Sarai Rivera is asking the Worcester Redevelopment Authority, which owns Union Station, to take the figure down.
"I’ve held my tongue, for perhaps longer than I should have, but the time is now well passed for the Worcester Redevelopment Authority to remove the statue commemorating Christopher Columbus from their property at Union Station," she said in a statement. "We should not be deceiving future generations by continuing to pretend he’s worthy of any sort of honor and he is certainly not who we want honoring generations of immigrants that came through Union Station decades ago, or welcoming visitors to our city today."
City public works crews were called out to clean the statue on Tuesday after it was defaced with paint and graffiti. A Columbus statue in Boston's North End was decapitated recently; the city has removed the figure for the time being.
But Columbus is a strong figure in Worcester. Cristoforo Colombo Park is a main gathering spot along Shrewsbury Street. In December, the City Council voted to affirm its commitment to celebrating Columbus Day in October — and that was weeks after a citizen asked the city to recognize Indigenous People's Day.
Rivera highlighted that Christopher Columbus Day vote in calling for the statute to come down. She asked City Manager Edward Augustus to review the citizen petition requesting an Indigenous People's Day recognition.
"As an Afro-Taina, I know far too well the atrocities and devastation Colombus caused not just to the Taino Island of Borinquen (now Puerto Rico), but throughout the Caribbean, Central America and North America," Rivera said. "Slavery, rape, murder, torture and sexual enslavement only partially capture his sins, crimes and trail of bodies. In no way do I view him as any kind of leader deserving of memorialization, but much more as a criminal, who’s crimes to this day continue to wreak havoc throughout the Americas."
