Columbus Day: Italian-American communities championed the day in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a symbol of pride and heritage to combat widespread anti-Italian discrimination. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it a federal holiday in 1937.Or, Indigenous Peoples Day: The concept grew out of a 1977 United Nations conference on discrimination. South Dakota was the first state to replace Columbus Day with "Native Americans' Day" in 1989/1990, and Berkeley, California, became the first city to officially adopt Indigenous Peoples' Day in 1992.