Chicago mayor permanently removes all Columbus statues from city parks

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said he supports the decision for the city to permanently eliminate statues of Christopher Columbus from two different city parks. He said that the decision shows the city's "collective humanity." 

Both the Arrigo Park and Grant Park Columbus statues were removed from their places after the Black Lives Matter protests and riots during the summer of 2020, according to Fox 32. The statues have been in limbo after the original choice to remove them by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but Johnson backed a plan to make the removals permanent on Tuesday. 

“Art and culture in particular is something that I don’t believe we should erase,” Johnson said. “And we do have to make sure that our presentation is depicting not just truth, but the best part of our existence, which is our collective humanity.”

The permanent removals come after the resolution of a lawsuit launched by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans (JCCIA) over the statue. The settlement agreement sees to it that the statue from Arrigo Park goes to a museum that the JCCIA owns. The deal will leave the base in the park empty.

Mayor Johnson’s Park District CEO Rosa Ramirez-Rosa said of the plan, "The Chicago Park District is committed to diversifying our statuary to ensure we are honoring Chicago's rich history and diversity.”

Another group, the Italian American Human Relations Foundation of Chicago, said that the decision to put the statue in the museum is "cultural treason," per the Chicago Tribune.

“The statue will be hidden away indoors – out of public sight – as part of an undefined ‘museum-style’ exhibit,” the group's president, Lou Rago, wrote in response to the settlement. “A sad final disposition of a statue of the heroic navigator whose voyages led to the introduction of Western European civilization and culture to a new world.”