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An online petition has been circulating, with more than 650 signatures, calling for the Mount Kisco Board of Trustees to remove the Columbus statue located outside the public library.
“Mount Kisco is a diverse town, populated with about 10,710 people. It is appalling to see a Christopher Columbus Statue in this town,” organizers stated. “Christopher Columbus has been well known for his numerous acts of violence when arriving to Hispaniola.
“He is responsible for selling children into sex-slavery, mutilation, slavery, mass genocide, rape, and beheading the indigenous people,” they continued. “Columbus never even laid foot in North America.”
The petition, posted by Kaitlynn Hurtado, currently has 653 signatures as of Friday, June 26. She is calling for the village to take down the statue and should instead “celebrate a local character who has done right by their community.”
The Columbus statue has stood in Mount Kisco since the early 1990s, first closer to Shoppers Park before being move closer to the library.
“Leif Eriksson led the first European expedition to North America, 500 years before the birth of Columbus; meaning he didn’t actually discover North America,” the petition states. “Christopher Columbus is a tyrant, which is why we need to take down this statue. In no way does Mount Kisco represent for the atrocities committed by Columbus, so why should there be a statue in our town in his honor?”
In the past, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo - a noted Italian-American - has pledged his support for a statue of Columbus in Manhattan, calling it the symbol of the “Italian-American legacy.”
"I understand the feelings about Christopher Columbus and some of his acts, which nobody would support,” he said earlier this month. “But the statue has come to represent and signify appreciation for the Italian-American contribution to New York, so for that reason I support it."
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