Over spirited protests by Italian-Americans, New Britain on Wednesday night decided to take down its controversial Christopher Columbus statue.
The decision was an apparent win for the New Britain Racial Justice Coalition, Puerto Rican activists and Democrats on the council, who’ve all been campaigning to remove what they call a racist memorial.
But it might not be the final move in the local culture battle that erupted after the national George Floyd protests last June. Columbus’s supporters complained that taking it away is discrimination against Italian-Americans, and warned they’re ready to sue.
“What the city’s doing is try to erase what we’ve done here, they’re trying to put us in a small ghetto,” Dario Gagliano told 16 Italian-American protestors outside city hall Wednesday evening.