A statue of Christopher Columbus in downtown Detroit is being targeted by a group that wants it removed.

Adrian Polk with the Black Youth Project 100 staged a demonstration at the statue on the weekend over Columbus' treatment of native Americans.

Polk says not enough people know about it. "They need to know about these symbols and know they are eradicated."

Polk says the statue is the first thing visitors see when they emerge from the Windsor-Detroit tunnel or arrive downtown after exiting I-375.

"These monuments of segregation and colonialism in metro Detroit need to stop being hidden," says Polk.

Originally erected in 1910, the statue was moved to its current location at Randolph St. and Jefferson Ave. in 1988.