Indigenous Peoples' Day is a reality in Medway. What did it take to get there?

MEDWAY — When Town Meeting voted on May 8 to recognize Indigenous People's Day, lifelong resident Brittney Walley, a member of the Nipmuc community, said she both laughed and cried.

She said it goes beyond an effort that she and a handful of others started during the summer of 2020.

"It's not just for the two years, it's my entire life living in this town as an Indigenous person," Walley said. "To actually see this change within my lifetime is incredible."

In a 142-88 vote, Town Meeting approved a measure that officially recognizes the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples' Day, rather than the traditional Columbus Day. In doing so, Medway joins several other Massachusetts communities — including Ashland, Wayland, Framingham, Hopkinton, Holliston, Millis and Sudbury.

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Columbus Day remains a federal holiday in the United States, marking the anniversary of explorer Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Bahamas in October 1492. But there are six states — Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, South Dakota, New Mexico and Maine — that have replaced it with celebrations of either Indigenous Peoples' Day or something else. In Hawaii, it's now "Discoverers' Day," and in South Dakota, it's "Native American Day."

Massachusetts still recognizes Columbus Day, even as several of its communities have made the change to Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Despite his success as an explorer, Columbus is a controversial figure. He and his men are believed to have enslaved many native people and treated them with extreme violence and brutality, according to History.com.

Call for change gets resistance

Getting Medway to adopt Indigenous Peoples' Day was not without pushback.

"I think keeping the goal really grounded is important," Walley said. "There's no perfect way to overcome it. You do just keep trying, you just keep remembering your goal and trying to share that with people.

"You just keep trotting."

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Amna Saeed-Kothe, a Realtor and founding member of Medway Marches, an organization that seeks to create an inclusive community for people of color, added that some people are not comfortable with change. However, she said people can still learn history without celebrating people who are not the best reflection of humanity in history.

Local activists first sought to have Medway Public Schools recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day in their school calendar.

"We kind of naively went into this thinking schools are places of education," said Saeed-Kothe. "We thought we would go in there, we would build momentum from there, and then the town would come next. We didn't realize it would take as significant an effort as as it did. But now we see that the outcome was positive on both fronts."

Residents involved with the movement to change the calendar created a petition sent to Medway Public Schools, which received more than 200 signatures and more than 400 points of correspondence about the petition, according to Saeed-Kothe.

She said high school students came to a public forum and talked about their experiences and what it would mean for them to have Indigenous People's Day recognized.

Ensuring Indigenous Peoples' Day is more than symbolic

At one point Walley organized a panel that included Indigenous voices as well as leaders from Italian Americans for Indigenous Peoples' Day.

"We had almost an hour presentation from those voices to our School Committee, so we're able to point to all of those resources as we continue to move down that journey and publicly speak especially at Town Meeting as well," said Marques Crosby, a member of Medway's Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Advisory (IDEA) Committee.

Work remains to be done, according to Crosby, who said now it's time to ensure the day is properly being celebrated and not just a symbolic gesture. Walley said communities, including Medway, will have to deal with the idea of reconciliation and truth when it comes to Indigenous people.

"I'm very excited to see how the town will make an effort to have a relationship with tribes like my own, and the other local tribes, as well," she said.

This article originally appeared on The Milford Daily News: Medway Town Meeting votes to recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day