Working to Protect, Preserve, Promote
Members of the Coalition and the Columbus Citizens Foundation commissioned the New York Landmarks Conservancy to traced the history of the Columbus Circle statue and the 1891 mass lynching of 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans. From this unspeakable tragedy, impoverished Italian Americans immigrants designed, funded, and constructed the statute as a public expression of their culture, pride, and identity.
After beating back efforts in 2018 to dismantle the Columbus Circle statue, the Coalition secured the preservation of the statue through special designations in the federal National Register of Historic Places
and the New York State Register of Historic Places.
The Coalition advocated for Frances X. Cabrini, the Catholic saint and minister to migrants who founded nearly 70 orphanages, schools, and hospitals century ago. When a New York City commission refused to include Mother Cabrini’s among statues of historically important women, the Coalition provided support and technical assistance to advance Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s alternative Cabrini statue in Battery Park, overlooking the historic harbor that welcomed immigrants.
The Coalition is a strong voice for accuracy, fairness and historical context. We reject “canceled’’ history, mindless acts to destroy, defile or conceal statues of exceptional individuals such as the celebrated Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, statesman and social reformer Frederick Douglass, abolitionist Hans Christian Heg, Spanish monarch Isabella, and many others. The Coalition advocates for the long-overdue recognition of Native American culture, including statues. We favor more statues and more viewpoints.
The Coalition is continually spearheading the fight against hate crimes. We oppose the violent, mob-rule defilement of Columbus statues in Baltimore, Boston, and Richmond as hate crimes against ethnic groups seeking to freely express pride in their culture, their forebears, and their accomplishments. And we demand federal and state law enforcement prosecute these hate crimes to the full extent of the law.