Help Change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day

A hearing on S.2113 and H.3292: An Act Establishing an Indigenous People’s Day in Massachusetts (Barber/Comerford) will take place at the State House on Wednesday, June 4, at 11 a.m. in Gardner Auditorium. Please register, wear purple and attend the hearing in person, or register to testify virtually.

Legislators, public officials, and the public must register to provide oral testimony. To register to testify virtually or in-person, please provide the contact information requested in this form by 4:00 PM on Monday, June 2. (note: registration for signing up to testify is closed. you may still attend in person - RSVP here: 6/4/25 Indigenous People's Day Committee Hearing, 11AM in the Gardner Auditorium see below for instructions on submitting written testimony)

There is no fixed deadline for written testimony (template provided below) but sooner is better than later. Please take a few minutes today to send in your comments. It matters more that the Joint Committee on State Administration receives LOTS of comments in support of Indigenous Peoples Day, than that all the comments be distinctive and original. Please, write your own remarks in support of S.2113 and H.3292 if you would prefer, or use the template linked below.

WRITTEN TESTIMONY in Support of S.2113 and H.3292: An Act Establishing an Indigenous People’s Day in Massachusetts can be submitted via email to Svetlana Yefimenko at svetlana.yefimenko@mahouse.gov or Riley Nichols at  riley.nichols@masenate.gov. 

Senate chair of the Joint Committee on state administration, Nick Collins, should be a particular focus of our attention, since he voiced an unfavorable position on the IPD bill last session. Let’s educate him! Please send a copy of your remarks to Sen. Nick Collins at: Nick.Collins@masenate.gov

For a template to submit written comments provided by the Mass Indigenous Legislative Agenda, go here: Submit written testimony with this guide.

Many states, including Vermont and Maine, have chosen to discard Columbus in the dustbin of history where he belongs. Columbus in his own diaries acknowledged his role as a kidnapper of Native people and a rapist of Native women. It is time for Massachusetts to join Vermont and Maine and at least twelve other states in honoring Indigenous People with a statewide holiday replacing Columbus Day on the 2nd Monday of October. 

The genocidal wars against the Native people of Turtle Island began with Columbus and his men. To continue to teach our school children to honor him each year with a statewide holiday is an outrage. We celebrate the end of slavery in America on Juneteenth in all our schools. How can we continue to celebrate the godfather of the slave trade in the America’s each October?

Indigenous Peoples Day Now for Massachusetts!