Columbus Day for many is a time to honor and remember the man often credited with discovering America.
Native Americans want to change it.
A handful of cities, including Lincoln, changed Columbus Day to national Indigenous Day.
Rudi Mitchell is a retired Creighton professor of Native American studies.
Mitchell is also a great, great grandson of the last Omaha chief before their land was moved to northeastern Nebraska.
He says it's offensive when people say Columbus discovered America because it implies no one was here.
"I would think that society would want to change the name to Indigenous Day,” Mitchell said. “We were part of the land, the culture, everything here before any immigrants came to this area."
While the effort to change the holiday in Lincoln had no resistance, Mitchell said, some in the Italian American community say they don't want the change because Columbus represents the man who paved the way for immigrants to leave tyranny.
