2020 saw the removal of dozens of Christopher Columbus statues in the U.S. Protestors vandalized some while municipalities removed others after persistent public outcries in tandem with Black Lives Matter protests.
Wilmington city staff removed and stored statues of Christopher Columbus and Caesar Rodney in June 2020 “to allow for a community discussion about the public display of historical figures and events.”
Now, Wilmington City Council is set to consider a resolution against reinstalling a Christopher Columbus statue on public grounds. Councilmember Shané Darby said she put the resolution together because she doesn’t want to see public dollars go toward maintaining the statue.
“If you guys love Christopher Columbus, go put that rapist, colonialist, imperialist white man somewhere else on private property,” Darby said. “But putting it on [taxpayer] dollars in a majority Black city in the times that we're in… where you have a president like Trump getting rid of programs… and don't even want to have conversations about black history – yeah, they can miss me on that.”
Societa da Vinci, Christopher Columbus Monument Committee and the Sons and Daughters of Italy are Italian American groups in the area calling for the return of the Columbus statue to Father Tucker Park. The organizations are hosting a neighborhood gathering Tuesday at St. Anthony’s Lodge 3012 ahead of Thursday’s City Council meeting.
Societa da Vinci director Albert Greto said he plans to make his organizations’ discussions known at the Council meeting.
“Instead of listening to what the public has to say, as a public servant – but instead of listening to what the public has to say and gaging her moves accordingly, she decided to float her own petition or her own resolution out there to forever ban Christopher Columbus from the park,” Greto said.
In separate interviews with Delaware Public Media, Darby and Greto agreed Columbus was a flawed figure. Greto said taking the statue down denies people access to history.
“Now I'm not saying Columbus doesn't have baggage,” Greto said. “He has baggage, but a lot of stuff that's attributable to him is, quite frankly, some of the work of the Spaniards or people that followed him, like his son.”
In Columbus’s time governing Hispaniola, which is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti, a Spanish admiral arrested and imprisoned him after repeated misconduct complaints. Columbus also started the transatlantic slave trade on his second voyage, abducting hundreds of indigenous people and taking them to Spain.
That led to Spanish and Portuguese ships carrying enslaved African people to the Americans as well.
Darby said she sees the request to reinstall the Columbus statue as an insult after being invited to attend the community meeting.
“I let them know that, one, I wasn't coming to the meeting, especially not anytime during the year but especially not during Black History Month to talk about Christopher Columbus, the face the father of colonialism, imperialism, of raping, of enslavement,” Darby said. “I would never. And then on top of that, I think it's disrespectful for anyone to then reach out and say, ‘Would you have a conversation about putting them up?’ No one will ever go to the Chinese people, to Jewish people, and ever say, ‘Hey, will you guys have a conversation about putting up [a statue of the] people who oppressed you?’ They would never do that to them.”
The city does not own this statue; it is on loan. Darby said she’s amenable to helping return the statue so it can be displayed on private property and maintained using private funds.
Greto said he wants to see the statue back up in Father Tucker Park, but he’s not open to the city holding on to the statue and keeping it in storage.
“It's now 2026, and it's time to figure out if the city is going to put the statue back from where they took it, whether they'll honor [it],” Greto said. “When all is said and done, however it plays out, that statue needs to either go back to the plaza that it came from, go to Father Tucker Park or [be] given back to the [Christopher Columbus Monument Committee], and we'll deal with it privately, on private land.”
Greto said the organizations calling for the statue’s return have “plenty of financial fortitude” to ensure it is properly put on display. He added one option is to display it in a gallery or in a nearby Italian cultural center.
Councilmembers will discuss the statue at Thursday’s regular council meeting.
