Columbus Park, in Denver’s Sunnyside neighborhood, has been a gathering place for families for decades. The sign bearing the Italian explorer’s name for the park has been removed. The sign’s disappearance both pleased and surprised Arturo Bones Rodriguez. “I looked over and I said wow it’s down. Now the next thing was, who took it down. Was it protesters. My last thought is that it was the city,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez has been battling to have the park renamed to La Raza Park for 50 years. In 1970, there was once a pool in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood now experiencing gentrification. That was the site of a swim in – where protestors refused to leave. Since then, they’ve been asking for the name to be changed to La Raza Park.