Oklahoma Senate nominee says Trump's Columbus Day revival erases Native history

Oklahoma's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate says the White House push to celebrate Christopher Columbus erases the suffering of Native people. N'Kiyla Jasmine Thomas argues the holiday weekend changes nothing about what it really is to her: Indigenous Peoples' Day.

A holiday under dispute

Columbus Day has stirred friction across the country for years. Native Americans and other critics say honoring the Italian explorer glosses over a record of violence and enslavement. He also never set foot in what is now the United States. His first landfall was in the Caribbean in the present-day Bahamas. He then moved on to Hispaniola where Haiti and the Dominican Republic sit today.

His voyages opened a long period of European conquest across the Americas. It brought forced labor and brutal rule. One estimate says Europeans' arrival displaced or killed or sickened up to 95 percent of the Native population in what became the U.S.

What the White House did

President Donald Trump signed a Columbus Day proclamation on Wednesday that calls the explorer a legend whose vision helped create the greatest and freest nation in history. It also vows that radical extremists will not be permitted to erase his legacy. He then held a Columbus Day event at the White House on Friday. Earlier this year a Columbus statue was installed on the grounds as a copy of one toppled during the 2020 protests.

Thomas answers back

Thomas is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation with Black and Native American and white ancestry. A Nov. 3 victory would be a first for Oklahoma because of her Black and Native heritage.

She sees the administration's moves as an attempt to show off the nation's achievements while dodging blame for its failures over the past 250 years. In her words the effort is "white supremacy." She says Indigenous communities have always marked their own people on that day. She also says that without the arrival of Columbus Native communities would not face land loss or deep poverty or the erosion of their sovereignty.

She is not discouraged. "We're going to rise up just like we always have done," she said.

A call for unity

Thomas says white Americans have a history of harming marginalized groups and often resist being held to account for what their ancestors did. She also points to white allies and other communities of color who are helping resist efforts to sanitize Native history. Her message to anyone uneasy about facing that past is simple. She wants people to teach honestly and stay open to learning so the mistakes are not repeated.

Her main appeal is aimed at Black and Native communities in Oklahoma. She wants them to stand together against shared inequities instead of fighting each other. If both communities came together she believes they would be an unstoppable force in Oklahoma and across the nation.

Many states and cities already observe Indigenous Peoples' Day. It was created as an alternative to Columbus Day to refocus the date on Native histories and cultures.