For more than 50 years, Indigenous leaders of the area now known as Massachusetts have been calling for the state’s flag and seal to be changed. A group of supporters began a Peace Walk on Friday, August 24th at the New York border in Williamstown, continuing across the Commonwealth to the Boston Common and the State House in support of Indigenous concerns, including long-stalled legislative priorities such as banning the use of racist mascots in Massachusetts public schools. The Walk for a New Dawn is calling for a broad-based education program about the historical impacts of colonial-settlerism on Native communities, followed by a change to the flag and seal of the Commonwealth, which portrays a settler’s hand holding a colonial broadsword poised threateningly above the head of a Native figure, with the Latin motto, in essence: ‘Peace Under the Sword.’
The Walk also supports Defending Sacred Homelands, and Honoring All Peoples (ICE OUT of MASSACHUSETTS – No One is Illegal on Stolen Land).
As Shawn Stevens, a spokesperson for the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians told WAMC’s Berkshire Bureau chief Josh Landes on Feb 26, 2026, “The sword above the Native figure, to me, represents a genocide. Native Americans did not have swords. It was nothing that we had used. A sword is an implement of war.”
Stevens continued, “I usually don’t get too upset about mascots and things like that, unless they’re very, very despicable. I can’t stand by and say this one’s not bad. It’s bad. It’s terrible.”
A steadily growing list of co-sponsoring social justice organizations have joined with Change the Mass Flag in organizing the Walk for a New Dawn. The walk kicked off from the Petersburgh Pass in Williamstown on Friday, July 24, at the NY border (Route 2) and has proceeded through the Berkshire County towns of North Adams, Florida, Savoy, Plainfield, and Cummington to its current location in the beautiful Apple Valley of Ashfield, in Franklin County (where 24 of the 26 towns have taken formal votes since 2018 in support of changing the white supremacist flag and seal of Massachusetts.
Since those first town meeting votes, first one special commission and then another advisory commission have been established by the legislature to study the meaning, history and harmful impact of the present flag and seal of Massachusetts. The current 10-member advisory commission, co-chaired by Massachusetts Education Secretary Stephen Zrike and his counterpart, Director of Travel and Tourism Kate Fox, includes four Indigenous leaders of the area now contained within the borders of the Commonwealth: Director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs Jim Peters, Mashpee Wampanoag; Elder of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag Elizabeth Solomon; Western Mass Commissioner on Indian Affairs Rhonda Kay Alak Anderson; Iñupiak-Athabascan, and Mass Cultural Council Traditional Arts Program Officer Summer Confuorto, Gros Ventre, Cree, Mi’kmaq. At their most recent meeting (6/25/26) Solomon and Anderson led the call to halt consideration of a new design for the flag and seal of Massachusetts until the commission first turned its attention to the second, more fundamental task contained within the commission’s enabling legislation: to design and implement “educational programs to help residents understand local Indigenous history and the historical underpinnings of the previous and new seals, mottos and flags from an Indigenous perspective.” The Indigenous leaders of the commission gained the crucial support of Mass Humanities Director Brian Boyles, and the meeting ended with a tacit agreement to hold off on any further discussion or scheduling of public hearings on a new flag, seal and motto design until the Education Subcommittee of the Massachusetts Seal, Flag and Motto Advisory Commission has time to hold “listening sessions with all the Indigenous communities” within the borders of the Commonwealth, not excluding those tribal communities and nations with historical roots in the area that have been pushed further to the north and west through centuries of strife, war, and land-taking, to gain direction on the foundation of a broad-based educational program for the general public in Massachusetts to understand the true history of colonial-settler relations with the Indigenous Nations of the area, to understand why the flag and seal must be changed. More than one quarter of the cities and towns in Massachusetts have taken formal votes in support of this historic process, and in support of changing the flag and seal for a new, aspirational and inclusive symbol we can all be proud to uphold and to teach to our children in the public schools.
The Walk for a New Dawn will continue on to the Boston Common and the State House, arriving on August 13th, weather permitting.
Walkers will travel in the spirit of non-violence, carrying banners, signs and literature advancing three main themes: Listen to Native Voices, Honor All Peoples, and Defend Native Homelands.
The Walk will support passage of the five bills backed by the Mass Indigenous Legislative Agenda (massindigenousagenda.org).
To Honor All Peoples, the Walk organizers declare: No One is Illegal on Stolen Land. ICE out of Massachusetts Now.
In Defense of Sacred Homelands, the Walk will raise awareness in solidarity with Community Land and Water Coalition’s ongoing campaign to halt sand mining operations in the fragile ecosystem of the sand barren around Carver and Plymouth sacred to the Herring Pond Wampanoag, and in defense of the vital fresh water aquifer beneath the sand barren that provides drinking water to 200,000 households.
The Walk will also raise awareness of Governor Maura Healey’s attempt to repeal the voter-approved 1982 referendum placing strict guardrails on the construction of new nuclear reactors in the Commonwealth.
“We join with the Walk for a New Dawn in calling on the people of Massachusetts to Defend Sacred Homelands,” said Deb Katz, spokesperson for the Rowe, Ma-based Citizen’s Awareness Network. “Six legislators have been named this month to negotiate competing House and Senate versions of a bill called ‘An Act to Save People Money, Repair the Climate, and Grow the Economy.’ Sounds innocuous. But it is an attempt by Governor Healey to repeal the referendum passed in 1982 by more than two-thirds of the voters providing responsible safeguards that must be met, including a statewide vote, before any construction of new nuclear reactors in Massachusetts can be advanced. This repeal represents an attack on our Democracy and an assault on our Environment. With the Trump administration’s promotion of nuclear power and its relaxation of regulations and reduction in radiation protection standards, repealing an Act that protects the state and its people is irresponsible and dangerous.
“If Governor Maura Healey’s push to bring nuclear power back to Massachusetts succeeds, many communities will suffer. The target for nuclear power and its toxic waste has always been the working poor, people of color, and Indigenous communities, whose sacred homelands become the sacrifice zones and cancer alleys from the splitting of the atom. We ask people to contact their legislators today and tell them to support sustainable energy solutions, not the false promises of the nuclear industry.”
Supporters are asked to bring letters to Governor Healy expressing their desire for a change to the Mass flag and seal and passage of all five of the Mass Indigenous Legislative Agenda’s priority bills (MassIndigenousAgenda.org). Letters will be collected along the Walk and hand delivered to the Governor following a closing rally on the Boston Common, August 13, (time to be announced.)
Wendy Penner, a spokesperson for Greylock Together, one of a growing list of co-sponsoring organizations behind the Walk for a New Dawn, said, “Greylock Together supports ongoing efforts to change the Massachusetts flag, and applauds the advocacy efforts of the resistance walkers. We urge Governor Healey to move forward from vague promises to action on removing barriers of systemic racism in the Commonwealth. Governor Healey, the imagery on our state flag is offensive and prejudicial. You don’t have to wait for the legislature to approve a new design. We’d rather live with no flag at all for a year or two than to be forced to keep flying this one. Governor Healey, take down that racist flag of violence today.
Supporters of the Walk for a New Dawn are asked to bring letters to potluck events, rallies and speak-outs being organized by the Walk for a New Dawn so that the walkers my hand-deliver them to Governor Healey. Letters on the three main themes of the Walk are encouraged, expressing a desire for a change to the Mass flag and seal and passage of all five of the Mass Indigenous Legislative Agenda’s priority bills (MassIndigenousAgenda.org), letters demanding ICE OUT of MASSACHUSETTS NOW, and letters in defense of Sacred Homelands, an end to sand mining on the sand barren sacred to the Herring pin Letters will be collected along the Walk and hand delivered to the Governor following a closing rally on the Boston Common, August 13th, (time to be announced.)
To sign up to walk for a few miles, or for a few days, to inquire about the Walk for a New Dawn itinerary as it evolves, to make a request to add your organization to the growing list of co-sponsors of the Walk, please go to: info@changethemassflag.com At this time, donations to meet the expenses for food, support vehicle fuel and maintenance, and basic supplies for the Walk are not being accepted. A gofundme campaign to support the Walk for a New Dawn is anticipated. Please await further updates.