The 30-foot bronze and granite Christopher Columbus statue, designed by sculptor Frank Vittor, stands in Pittsburgh’s historic Schenley Park. After years of small donations by the Italian American community, the statue was installed during Pittsburgh’s bicentennial in 1958.
By Basil M. Russo, iSDA National President
On April 19, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled 7 to 0 to reinstate a lawsuit to prevent the removal of Pittsburgh’s Christopher Columbus statue from Schenley Park. The suit was filed by the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), the largest Italian American fraternal association in Pennsylvania, founded in Pittsburgh in 1930.
The story of why in 1892 America began to celebrate Columbus Day, which subsequently led to the creation of Pittsburgh’s Columbus statue and over 100 others throughout our country, is a tragic example of the mistreatment of immigrants that needs to be told.
When Italians came to America
Between 1880 and 1920, some four million Italian immigrants left impoverished towns throughout southern Italy to seek a better life for their families in America. Upon their arrival in America, they were subjected to violence and hostility unlike anything they had experienced in Italy.
Many of these immigrants arrived through the port of New Orleans to provide cheap labor needed in the sugar cane fields. They took the place of emancipated slaves.
One of the worst episodes of racial violence in our country’s history occurred in New Orleans in 1891, when the city’s police chief, David Hennessy, was shot. As he lay dying in a dark street, when asked who shot him, he allegedly said, “The Dagos.”
Some 200 Italian immigrants were taken into custody, and nine of them were tried before a jury. None were found guilty. Despite that finding, they were all returned to the jail.
Political and business leaders in the community inflamed the deep-seated anti-Italian immigrant sentiment that existed in New Orleans. A mob in excess of 5,000 people gathered in the town square, stormed the jail, and beat, shot and lynched 11 Italian immigrants.
This was the largest mob to ever participate in a mass lynching in American history. Yet you will not read a single word about it in any of our school’s history books.
To fully understand how despised the immigrants were, the New York Times, and many other newspapers throughout the country, actually applauded the lynchings in their editorials. Future president Teddy Roosevelt stated that the lynchings “were a rather good thing.”
Tragically, the New Orleans lynchings were not an isolated incident. Over the next 30 years, 40 more Italian immigrants were strung up by angry mobs.
The beginning of Columbus Day
In an effort to encourage more tolerance and acceptance of Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared a national celebration of Columbus Day in 1892. From that day to this, Columbus, who was regarded as a national hero of Italian heritage, was embraced by Italian immigrants as a symbol that they would someday be accepted in America.
But injustice again befell our community in 1920, when immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested and ultimately executed for allegedly killing a shoe factory paymaster and guard. Their trial was another example of a corrupted justice system.
The trial was conducted by a bigoted judge who expressed his contempt for Italian immigrants publicly. Protests in support of Sacco and Vanzetti were held throughout the world to no avail.
Anti-Italian hysteria again reached a fever pitch in WWII when 600,000 Italians living in our country were designated as Enemy Aliens and were subjected to curfews, confiscation of property, loss of jobs, relocation from their homes, and in many cases internment camps. The tragic irony of this situation is that while they were being treated as criminals, one million of their sons were fighting and dying to keep our country free.
Many well-intentioned but misinformed Americans vilify Columbus because of allegations not supported by primary source material. Many books have been published in recent years that debunk the lies and misinformation.
These include “Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem,” by Carol Delaney, a book Harvard historian Gordon S. Wood called “a remarkable work of history” and which the Times Literary Supplement named one of its 100 best books of the year; “Debunking Howard Zinn,” by Mary Grabar; and “Christopher Columbus the Hero,” by Rafael (no last name).
Pride and gratitude
Through decade after decade of hardship, hostility, persecution and prejudice, the statues, parades and days created in Columbus’ honor were the outlets through which Italians in America expressed their pride in their heritage and their gratitude to their new homeland.
This unique and inseparable bond helped our community overcome the bias and violence we encountered in our long journey to assimilation into America’s mainstream culture.
PRESERVE COLUMBUS IN PITTSBURGH
ISDA’s members and social media followers, particularly those who reside in Allegheny County, are asked to contact Pittsburgh City Hall and Pittsburgh City Council, either by phone or email, to express their opposition to the planned removal of the statue (the removal was approved by former Mayor Bill Peduto in 2020).
Here’s sample text that can be used in your phone calls and/or emails:
Christopher Columbus symbolizes Italian Americans’ decades-long fight for assimilation in the face of crushing discrimination. To uproot the statue would be an affront to our culture and history, and I refuse to accept that erasing our past somehow solves the city’s present-day issues. I ask that you preserve the Schenley Park Columbus statue, for the sake of my family and my ancestors. They deserve better, as do we, considering that Pittsburgh’s Metropolitan Area has one of the largest concentrations of Italian Americans in the nation.
Columbus’ History
In 1892, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison organized the first national Columbus Day parade in New York City to ease a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Italy, which surfaced a year prior when the largest lynch mob ever to assemble on American soil murdered 11 innocent Italian immigrants in the streets of New Orleans.
Given the massive success of President Harrison’s NYC parade (attended by more than one million people), Italian Americans built Columbus statues across the U.S. through the 1900s to help fuel their assimilation. Today, the holiday honors Italian American pride and heritage.
Over the past two years, ISDA President Basil Russo and his Italian American peers have worked directly with White House officials to develop Columbus Day proclamations that explore the history behind the holiday.
See the 2022 and 2023 Columbus Day Proclamations, published by President Joe Biden, for further context.
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