Columbus Day arguably has become the nation’s most controversial federal holiday, so much so that a handful of states and dozens of cities have opted to replace the disputatious day with Indigenous Peoples Day.
While the movement to dump Columbus Day has picked up steam in recent years, the Italian explorer’s exploits have been the topic of debate for decades.
Five hundred years after Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic and onto the shores of what is believed to be Watling Island in the Bahamas, Berkeley, Calif., in 1992 became the first U.S. city to replace the holiday with one honoring Native Americans, eventually dubbing it Indigenous Peoples Day.
Since then, five states have followed suit. So what do these states have in common and how do they differ? Check out our State Data Lab and see for yourself!
