Slow Turtle said, “You see, we had democracy here before the Europeans came, but we had spirituality in our democracy. We had respect for differences in other people’s ways of life. They don’t allow for that in this system.”
His son, Jim Peters, now serves as the director of the Mass Commission on Indian Affairs. He also served on the recent Special Commission seeking a change to the state flag and seal.
Good news on the effort to change the racist flag and seal of Massachusetts. After more than 40 years of study and delay, the Massachusetts legislature agreed last week to include an amendment to the FY’25 state budget to establish a 10-person advisory committee – which will include at least two Indigenous members – to create a new design for the state flag and seal.
The budget is now headed to Governor Maura Healey for her signature.
If the governor signs off on the budget including the amendment as it stands, it will then be her task to appoint the advisory committee, which will have a 12-month deadline to present a new, aspirational and inclusive flag, seal and motto for the Commonwealth.
For more than 50 years, Indigenous leaders have been calling for a change to the official symbol of Massachusetts – a Colonist’s hand holding a sword over the head of a Native man, with a Latin motto that translates: ‘She seeks a Quiet Peace with Liberty under the Sword.’
Since 2018, 82 Massachusetts cities and towns have taken formal votes in support of this long awaited change.
The legislature, responding to grassroots pressure in support of the call of Native leaders, established a Special Commission on the Seal and Motto in January of 2021 to review the history and meaning of the flag, seal and motto and to recommend changes. The six Indigenous leaders who served on that panel forged a consensus among its 19 members that our current state symbol is causing harm, and easily interpreted as “a celebration of the history of violence perpetuated by settlers against Indigenous populations.” The commission voted unanimously on May 17th, 2022 that our current state symbol needs to be completely revised.
On May 23rd, 2024, the state Senate voted 30 – 9 in favor of a budget amendment co-sponsored by Sen. Jason Lewis, Sen. Jo Comerford and Sen. Rebecca Rausch to complete the recommendations of the Special Commission and establish an advisory committee to change the flag and seal. The advisory committee would also be required to outline steps for “educational programs to help residents understand the local Indigenous history and the historical underpinnings of the previous and new seals, mottos and flags from an Indigenous perspective.”
Since the beginning of June, advocates from all parts of Massachusetts have sent a constant stream of letters to the six legislators who served on the House/Senate budget conference, urging them to preserve the Senate’s flag and seal amendment.
News came out on Friday, July 19th. The conference committee heeded the call and kept the amendment, including an appropriation of $100,000 in the final FY’25 budget to be used to solicit design proposals for a new flag and seal from the general public, to hold public hearings on the top picks in three locations across the Commonwealth, and once a final selection has been made, to hire a professional designer and present a new flag, seal and motto for legislative approval by the summer of 2025.
We thank John “Slow Turtle” Peters, the late medicine man of the Mashpee Wampanoag and former director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs, and former state representative Byron Rushing of Boston, who worked together to file the original legislation to change the flag and seal of Massachusetts, in 1985. We thank the many Indigenous leaders who have kept the pressure on the legislature for all these years to pass the bill co-authored by Slow Turtle and Byron Rushing. We thank the many peace, social justice, anti-racism and faith based organizations, along with the thousands of individual organizers and advocates who have steadfastly gathered signatures, placed supporting resolutions on town meeting warrants and city council agendas, participated in statewide surveys, and sent calls and letters to the legislature, the Secretary of State and the Governor, demanding that the flag and seal be changed. And we thank all the legislative leaders who have worked as true allies of Native people on this issue, while also moving forward to ban the use of Native mascots in public schools, replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, and on many other initiatives that remain top priorities of Indigenous leaders in Massachusetts today.
As we deal with mounting global challenges to peace, justice, and the survivability of our planet, amid the hope and horror of the upcoming national election, please, take a moment to reflect on the legislature’s long overdue yet very welcome decision to replace our current state symbol.
At its best, this decision reflects an honest acknowledgment of our painful shared history of settler violence and state sanctioned oppression of Native people. It signals an affirmation of the need to do all we can to heal that harm and to try to establish respectful relations and meaningful dialogue, not only with the sovereign Native nations of Massachusetts, but also with the sovereign Native nations all across this continent. That realization is at the core of this movement for change.
Then please take a moment to write to Governor Maura Healey, urging her to support the FY’25 budget amendment to change the flag and seal, and to swiftly appoint the 10 members of the advisory panel who will labor to complete this long awaited change.
Write to Governor Healey at this address: appointments.governor@mass.gov .
Thank you.
– Changethemassflag.com – Great Falls / Montague