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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) singled out a statue of Father Damien, a Catholic priest who ministered to a Hawaiian leper colony, as an example of “white supremacist culture.”
Father Damien, born Jozef de Veuster in Belgium, arrived in Hawaii in 1864 when the islands were an independent kingdom. The priest conducted missionary work on the islands and for the last 16 years of his life ministered to a leper colony, until he died after contracting leprosy himself. A statue of Father Damien stands in the U.S. Capitol.
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