‘Time for the insult to end:’ Waccamaw Indian People chief wants SC to nix Columbus Day

Waccamaw Indian People chief Harold Hatcher is backing a bipartisan effort to abolish Columbus Day in South Carolina, wanting it replaced with an observance more reflective of the state’s culture and heritage.

“I believe it’s time for the insult to end,” Hatcher told the Conway City Council Feb. 6. “America’s the strongest, most successful democracy on Earth. No American needs or deserves to be disrespected by leaders who would prop up a tyrant as a hero.”

A dozen states and 130 cities nationwide have already replaced the federal holiday with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and South Carolina could soon be joining that roster.

State Reps. Jermaine Johnson, D-Hopkins, and Richard Yow, R-Cheraw, have co-sponsored legislation to remove Columbus Day from the calendar. Their proposal is waiting action by the House Education and Public Works Committee, which added it to their calendar last month.

In 2020, South Carolina’s capital city — the first in America to be named after the explorer — removed a statue of its namesake from Riverfront Park after it was vandalized.

By the time Christopher Columbus arrived to the Americas in 1492, he was about 500 years behind Viking exploring Leif Erikson — yet another reason, Johnson said, to disassociate with him.

“We’re honoring a person under the guise that he discovered America, so it’s a false honor,” Johnson said. “You can’t discover something that’s already been discovered.”

A 2021 National Monument Lab audit found Columbus remains one of the country’s most venerated figures, with 149 markers nationally, putting him behind only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

That same year, President Biden issued a proclamation calling on wider celebrations and recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

“We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country,” Biden wrote.

The Aynor-based Waccamaw Indian People is among nine state-recognized tribes. Statewide, about .6% of South Carolina’s population are Native American — just under 17,000, according to U.S. Census data.

City officials on Monday didn’t respond to Hatcher’s request for a resolution asking the state to scrap Columbus Day, but Mayor Barbara Blain-Bellamy said she expects the matter to come back up for a vote.

“Columbus Day is based on a fraud, and it should be an insult to all Americans, in my opinion,” Hatcher said.