Columbus Day is a relatively young federal holiday. Our kids have a day off school, banks and courts are closed, and we are expected to shop. Why not use the day to protest our historic and unjust denial of voting rights in Congress? Let’s adopt Columbus Day as our day, once every year, to use all the tools of protest — from sit-ins to civil disobedience to Internet campaigns — to educate our fellow Americans about the little-known fact that we are the only Americans who have no say in the Senate and limited power in the House.
Here’s my logic. The holiday is named after Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who happened upon our part of the globe in 1492. In 1801, Congress carved a 100-square-mile enclave at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers — and named it District of Columbia, after the explorer.
We and the holiday share a name; let’s use the holiday to proclaim that people who live in the city named for the explorer live in shackles. Let’s send our children around the country to teach our lack of freedom. Our kids will learn as they teach. Let’s march on Congress. Let’s post videos on YouTube of real Washingtonians doing average things in our neighborhoods because most Americans don’t know we exist.
That’s right: Most Americans don’t feel our pain because they don’t know we are here, that we are 550,000 strong, that our families go back generations, that we paybillions in taxes and fight in Iraq — and also help run the government. Think I’m joking?
In June, DC Vote, the advocacy organization dedicated to securing full voting representation in Congress, polled Americans and held focus groups to gauge awareness of our lack of a vote.
“We discovered that we were operating on a misconception,” says communications director Kevin Kiger. “Most people, even ones we considered politically astute, thought that there were few people living in D.C. And that those who did live here worked for the federal government. Most think the city is made of bureaucrats, politicians, or the very, very poor.
“Our misconception was that they would be outraged that we don’t have a vote in Congress. How can they be outraged if they don’t know we exist?”
So let’s use Columbus Day to show them who we are. Once a year, let’s make this holiday our day to illuminate our status as second-class citizens. Protesting and educating — added to all of the fine work DC Vote is doing in Congress — could get us a vote. Every year, organize one event, teach one person, accompany a class of D.C. students to Kansas or Nebraska or California.
Says Kiger: “It would be patriotic of Washingtonians to remind Americans and the rest of the world our own Democracy is still incomplete. We could take advantage of the holiday to broaden peoples’ understanding of what it’s like to live here.”
Chris Columbus would be proud.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
