Hoboken Committeeman Starts Petition To Protect Columbus Statue

HOBOKEN, NJ – After statues across the country have been removed and defaced in protest, one Hoboken Republican committeeman has started a petition to make sure the statue of Christopher Columbus remains in Hoboken's Columbus Park, a county park. He says the name of the park should stay as well.

Joshua Sotomayor Einstein, a state Republican committeeman representing Hudson County, said in a release on Tuesday, "As the mass of mobs across the country calling for the removal, engaging in vandalizing, and toppling historical statues continue largely unopposed by political 'leadership,' a petition to save Columbus Park ... in Hoboken was launched today."

The petition had 56 signatures by the end of Tuesday night.

When asked if this particular statue has come under fire, Einstein said, "I have heard murmurs calling for its removal and the renaming of the park. Figured let's nip this in the bud."

There has been controversy around a Columbus statue in Parsippany, in Nutley, and in other towns across the country. In Nutley on Friday, some residents attended a Black Lives Matter demonstration because they falsely thought the BLM protestors intended to remove a Columbus statue.

In Parsippany, a student who started a petition against her town's Columbus statue explained, "We should not, in any way, celebrate or recognize his slaughter and enslavement of indigenous people. This is not someone that our town should be honoring with a statue."

Einstein said in the release, “This is not a Republican or Democrat issue, this is an American issue. The public efforts of unelected nihilistic totalitarians to tear down history fails to right any past wrongs, ignores that we celebrate historical figures despite their flaws not because of them, and erases our shared heritage.”

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