San Francisco has joined a growing list of cities to officially replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day.
The city's board of supervisors voted 10-1 in favor of the change on Tuesday. Supervisor Malia Cohen set the change in motion by introduced the legislation in an effort to honor the Native Americans who already lived in the area when Columbus arrived.
"This is in no way an attack or criticism on anyone's culture or race or ideological beliefs," Cohen explained.
A spokesman for California Association of Tribal Governments, Will Micklin, said, "He didn't discover America. We were here. When Columbus landed, oppression, subjugation, dominance and genocide followed. We don't think that deserves a holiday."
The only supervisor to vote the proposition down was Aaron Peskin, who proposed that the board "try to figure out a path forward" that satisfied both both groups. His fellow supervisors shot down his motion to delay in a 7-4 vote.
The states of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, South Dakota, and Vermont have already made the decision to not recognize Columbus Day as a holiday. The alternate holiday, Indigenous Peoples' Day, was first adopted in Berkeley, California in 1992. Their decision has been followed by a growing list of cities that now includes Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Portland, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City.
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