Documents menu

Buchanan pans Columbus Day parade protesters

By Michael P
October 9, 2000 11:42 a.m. EDT

DENVER - Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan on Monday accused American Indians who attempted to block a Columbus Day parade of "cultural Marxism."

"I think what is going on here is an intolerant, militant left-wing group is attempting to deny Italian-Americans their right to march under a banner of their hero, who is also a hero of Western civilization," Buchanan said in an interview Monday.

"It's all part of a political correctness, which is another name for cultural Marxism. It is anti-European and anti-Western civilization," he said. "We have a right to our heroes and they to theirs."

Denver police arrested 147 Indian and Hispanic activists who tried to block Italians from holding a parade honoring Christopher Columbus on Saturday. The activists, who accuse Columbus of slave trading and genocide, did not resist arrest.

It was the first Columbus Day parade in Denver since Indian activists clashed with parade participants in 1991.

"There's no doubt that back in Western history things wrong have been done, but the Native Americans are guilty of their own atrocities and their crimes. But we still honor Native Americans," said Buchanan, in Denver for media interviews.

"I knew Martin Luther King and I disagreed with some of the things he did but the African Americans certainly have a right to honor him. And we ought to respect that right," he said.