Activist worries Columbus statue debate is fading away
STAMFORD — Stephen Cerulli has been waiting for weeks for a response from city officials about the formation of a committee to discuss the future of Stamford’s Christopher Columbus statue, but he wonders if he will get one.
The monument dedicated to the explorer, and his name on the park where the statue stands, caused heated debates in the city this past summer, mirroring those at other spots honoring Columbus around the state and country.
In July, Superintendent of Parks and Recreation Jennifer Williams said an ad-hoc committee would be formed to discuss the
“I would like to see the city have a dialogue about it. Other cities are at least doing their jobs. In Stamford, they’re kind of hiding.” Stephen Cerulli
statue and whether or not it should be removed.
Cerulli, one of the organizers this summer of a petition drive to get the statue removed and the park renamed, said after exchanges with the city in the summer, he sent a follow-up email in early November asking for any update on the committee, but never received a reply.
Williams was contacted for this story, but did not respond to a request for comment.
This week, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said the Columbus issue is on the back burner as the city continues to grapple with the effects of COVID-19.
“Given the second wave of COVID-19 cases that began in October and continues to this day, conversations about the Columbus statue have been postponed until our environment is more conducive for discussion on this important issue,” wrote Arthur Augustyn, in an emailed message. “Our main priority at this point in
time is keeping the public safe and disseminating health and safety information about COVID-19.”
Cerulli on Tuesday questioned whether or not the city will take up the Columbus issue at all.
“I think they’re trying to avoid this subject completely,” Cerulli said. “I think the city ... hopes this gets swept under the rug and disappears.”
The college instructor from Stamford said the city should have handled the statue debate like some other cities have, by organizing public meetings and letting people be heard.
That played out recently in New Britain, where that city’s Common Council voted to remove their statue of the 15th century explorer. Mayor Erin Stewart then vetoed the decision.
“I would like to see the city have a dialogue about it,” Cerulli said. “Other cities are at least doing their jobs. In Stamford, they’re kind of hiding.”
Al Fusco, who heads the Italian-American group Unico Stamford, has spearheaded the effort to maintain the Stamford statue of Columbus.
Fusco took part in the New Britain debate, speaking a handful of times at Common Council meetings.
He was pleased with Stewart’s decision and reasoning, which he said mirrored a lot of his thoughts on the subject.
In her Dec. 17 letter explaining her veto, Stewart wrote, “I am deeply concerned about the precedent that the council is setting with this action. This new culture of trying to change history by erasing or ‘canceling’ history is preposterous. Where does it end?”
She questioned the significance
of removing the statue.
“The Common Council will have spent five months on a topic that does absolutely nothing to make life better for our residents,” she wrote.
Fusco this week echoed those sentiments.
“What are you accomplishing?” he asked about a potential removal of the Stamford statue. “What does it serve? What possible positive thing does it serve in the community? Does it make the schools any better? Does it make the police department any better?”
He added, “We have much bigger things to do with our time and energy than to focus on a statue that’s been standing there for 60 years.”
Much of the resistance to removing Columbus, in Stamford and elsewhere, comes from the fact that he and the day named for him long ago became focal points for celebrations of Italian Americans. In Stamford, organizers of the movement for change said Italian Americans’ contributions to the city should still be honored. But they suggested the honor be tied to a different figurehead.
The statue of Columbus in Stamford depicts him standing on a globe — to symbolize the New World — in the center of a small pool of water. It was erected in 1960 by the Stamford chapter of Unico, an Italian-American service organization established in Waterbury in 1922.
The movement to take down the Stamford monument gained steam earlier this year as groups across the country fought to remove memorials to Columbus, as well as to Confederate leaders, from public spaces — an extension of the mass protests that were set off by the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Columbus’ legacy and the way he is taught in schools has changed drastically since the Stamford statue was installed in 1960. While he is credited for connecting Europe to the Americas, Columbus also led a slave trade as well as the slaughter of indigenous people.