It's hard to believe that Prince does not yet have a statue in his home state of Minnesota, but a petition looking to change that is now raking in signatures, suggesting the Purple One be immortalized in public instead of Christopher Columbus.
"Across the nation, city governments are choosing to remove statues of white supremacists, slave owners, and those who threatened the livelihood of Black people," the petition reads. "Here in Minnesota, communities are reigniting the demand to bring down state's monument to Christopher Columbus, a man who murdered, raped and enslaved Black and Native peoples in the Americas."
Protestors in Minnesota toppled the Columbus monument out front of the state capitol earlier this month during demonstrations against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. Elected officials in the United States have claimed that Columbus statues actually honour Italian Americans — a remarkably pithy defence of an Italian sponsored to do Spain's colonial bidding.
The petition in question was launched two years ago, and had only met half of its 10,000-signature goal before attracting recent signees. You can add your name here.
"We, the undersigned, do not believe that Columbus represents the values Minnesotans carry. Rather than glorify a man who wanted to extinguish Black and Native peoples, we should honor members of our community whose leadership we find inspirational," it concludes. "Prince represents Minnesota values and Columbus does not."
On what would have been his 62nd birthday (June 7), Prince's estate shared a message about racial intolerance from the late musical icon's personal archives. It read, "Nothing more ugly in the whole wide world than INTOLERANCE."
One of Prince's blue "Cloud" guitars recently fetched $563,500 USD at an auction in Beverly Hills.
"Across the nation, city governments are choosing to remove statues of white supremacists, slave owners, and those who threatened the livelihood of Black people," the petition reads. "Here in Minnesota, communities are reigniting the demand to bring down state's monument to Christopher Columbus, a man who murdered, raped and enslaved Black and Native peoples in the Americas."
Protestors in Minnesota toppled the Columbus monument out front of the state capitol earlier this month during demonstrations against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. Elected officials in the United States have claimed that Columbus statues actually honour Italian Americans — a remarkably pithy defence of an Italian sponsored to do Spain's colonial bidding.
The petition in question was launched two years ago, and had only met half of its 10,000-signature goal before attracting recent signees. You can add your name here.
"We, the undersigned, do not believe that Columbus represents the values Minnesotans carry. Rather than glorify a man who wanted to extinguish Black and Native peoples, we should honor members of our community whose leadership we find inspirational," it concludes. "Prince represents Minnesota values and Columbus does not."
On what would have been his 62nd birthday (June 7), Prince's estate shared a message about racial intolerance from the late musical icon's personal archives. It read, "Nothing more ugly in the whole wide world than INTOLERANCE."
One of Prince's blue "Cloud" guitars recently fetched $563,500 USD at an auction in Beverly Hills.
