Westborough residents spoke in favor of the town retaining Columbus Day as a holiday at a Select Board meeting on Aug. 24. In turn, they opposed the position of the town’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, whose chair Cara Presley encouraged the Select Board to replace “Columbus Day” with “Indigenous People’s Day” at a July 20 meeting of the Select Board.

“By instituting the new holiday, we will publicly celebrate and raise awareness about the culture and history of indigenous people,” Presley said at the time. “By replacing Columbus Day, we honor the perseverance of indigenous people, despite their suffering at the hands of European colonists, led by Columbus, who overtook inhabited lands and committed genocide of indigenous people.”