The banner and a small gathering at the park took place exactly a year after the Columbus statue was taken down June 24, 2020 amid heated disagreements between groups that wanted the statue to remain and those insistent that it be removed.
Peter Criscuolo, a Wooster Square native and former fire commissioner in North Haven, said he paid for the sign that was displayed Thursday and chose the words on it, in an effort to get Americans to rally together and add to its representation of history.
“We are not here to divide. We are here to include,” said Criscuolo, who wants the statue returned to the park. “Everybody matters. … No one is better and no one is less.”
But city resident Sam Plattus, who was in the park when the banner was posted and briefly moved to take it down, said he believes the phrase “all lives matter” is hate speech.
The event at the park also prompted reactions from mayoral candidate Karen Dubois-Walton and her opponent, Mayor Justin Elicker.
Dubois-Walton was at the park while the banner was there, and Steve Jensen, a representative of her campaign, said she was there to listen and engage in conversation about the issue, not to support return of the statue.
“I certainly was interested in how we are going to be together as a community in ways that aren’t fighting in Wooster Square Park and that involved us being in difficult conversations and being able to disagree about things and to hear each other,” she said later.
“Last year when a crowd was protesting the removal of the statue, this mayor (Justin Elicker) stayed in his office and refused to engage with the crowd, refused to help keep the peace,” she said.
But Elicker criticized Dubois-Walton for standing in front of the banner at the park, saying “It is one thing to show up and listen. It is another thing to pose for a picture in front of an all lives matter banner …”
“Anyone who has followed the course of the last year and a half would acknowledge that I have been present in almost every protest when protesters have come to my house, when thousands of people marched in many different protests for Black Lives Matter,” Elicker said about Dubois-Walton’s claim.
Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti also attended the gathering. He later said he was there because of his displeasure with discussions playing out across the country.
Lauretti said he had offered to take the statue of Columbus from New Haven if the city determined it no longer had a use for it, noting the man’s importance to Italian-Americans.
“You can’t change history,” said Lauretti. “The way this is being done is so out of character for this country.”
Criscuolo said said the city should consider adding more statues to the park, representing experiences of other groups as they came to this country, rather than removing the one of Columbus. He said Italian-Americans in New Haven commonly view Columbus with pride, as a representation of heritage and efforts to join and become accepted in American society.
The Wooster Square Monument Committee, formed by Elicker after the statute was removed, has been working on plans share for an interpretive art project to take the place of the statue.
The Italian-American Heritage Group of New Haven also has sued the city over the future of the statue.
*story by The New Haven Register