Dear Friends:
Thank you all so much for supporting the Walk for a New Dawn, which crossed the entire Commonwealth from the NY border at Williamstown to the State House in Boston. We walked from July 24th to August 13th.
It was a huge effort, involving dozens of walkers and a nearly equal number of support drivers. We handed out more than 10,000 fliers, door to door, at potluck gatherings, at the MBTA stops in Porter Square, Harvard Square and Central Square, on the Boston Common, and all points in between. The Walk was the subject of countless media interviews, with coverage in major outlets like the Boston Globe, WBUR, WAMC, the Berkshire Eagle, the Greenfield Recorder, the Harvard Press, and a wide variety of online news and social media outlets. We talked with people everywhere along the route: in small towns, big cities, as they worked in their front yards, as they walked their dogs, as they jogged or rode their bicycles by us, as they sat in kiosks waiting for the bus.
In the heat of a summer day or in pouring rain, we uplifted three main themes for our Walk: Listen to Indigenous Voices, Honor All Peoples, and Defend Sacred Homelands.
All three focused on Indigenous concerns, and on Indigenous-backed legislative initiatives that never seem to make it into law in the white-majority legislature in Boston.
We urged people to contact their legislators and the governor to seek a total ban on the use of racist Native mascots in the two dozen or so public school districts in Massachusetts that continue to use them, even though Native sports mascots are plainly discriminatory, deny equality in education to Native students, and prejudice all students in our public schools.
Not all Native students are ‘Brave Warriors,’ of course – many of them may be budding scientists, poets, artists, or anything else they may wish to be. (Who could imagine naming a high school sports team the Montachusett Hispanics, for example? Why are these last two dozen school districts allowed to keep singling out Native students for racist discriminatory treatment?)
New York recently joined Maine and many other states in banning the use of Native sports mascots in the 63 districts that still used them. What is wrong with Massachusetts?
When will we follow the lead of our neighboring states and change the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day? When will we pass the long-stalled legislation to celebrate and teach the history and living cultures of the Native Nations of the Commonwealth in all our public schools?
We asked all these questions and more as we walked and talked with people all across the Commonwealth. We advocated for more education, respectful dialogue and active listening to the Indigenous Nations of the region, and we continued to push for a change to the violent, genocidal imagery of our state flag and seal.
When will Massachusetts finally remove the sword of colonialism that has been hanging over the heads of Native people on our flag and seal for centuries?
More to the point, when will Governor Maura Healey allow the Advisory Committee charged with designing a statewide program of education about the harm caused – especially to our Indigenous brothers and sisters – by the current flag and seal of Massachusetts to meet again? One meeting every 7 months or so is not going to cut it, Governor Healey.
When will you allow your lieutenants, Director of Travel and Tourism Kate Fox, and Secretary of Education Stephen Zrike, to call another meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Seal, Flag and Motto’s education subcommittee? Their work will never get done if you never allow them to meet.
All supporters of first, Listening to Native Nations, and then changing the flag and seal of Massachusetts should call Governor Maura Healey’s office: 617-725-4005 and urge her to get the Advisory Commission on the Seal, Flag and Motto’s education subcommittee meeting on a regular (at least monthly) basis so it can complete its work.
Walkers joined the ICE OUT vigil at the Burlington ICE detention center on Wednesday August 12th, organized by Bearing Witness New England, and brought back heartrending stories of the persecuted people who have been held there in violation of due process at 1000 District Avenue in Burlington. Vigils take place there each Wednesday from 11:00 am to 1 pm, and also (organized by Mass Peace Action and other groups) each Thursday from 11:00 am to 1 pm.
As we walked along the road from Lincoln to Arlington, we watched the planes flying out from Hanscom Field, where ICE detainees are regularly deported on private charter flights, despite calls from the Governor and state officials that they be halted, and to allow due process to proceed in all cases where ICE has kidnapped our darker-skinned brothers and sisters.
All along the Walk, we raised our voices in support, emphasizing: No One is Illegal on Stolen Land, ICE OUT of Massachusetts NOW. Kim Jalet, co-founder of Lincoln Witness, gave a great speech at our feisty rally on the Boston Common on Thursday, August 13th detailing local efforts to stop the Hanscom deportation flights, including ongoing vigils at the Hanscom Rotary each and every Friday from 1:00 to 2:30 pm. Please join the ICE OUT vigil closest to you!
The third theme of the Walk for a New Dawn – – Defend Sacred Homelands – – centered on two current examples: Halting the destruction of the homelands of the Herring Pond Wampanoag by escalating, unregulated sand mining in the ecologically rare, sensitive pine barrens in and around Plymouth and Carver. Hundreds of acres of the Herring Pond homelands have been stripped for private profit, sand storms blow regularly into the housing developments that have sprung up like toadstools in that area, and the fresh water aquifer that supplies drinking water to 200,000 people is increasingly threatened.
Katherine Harrelson, environmental analyst for the Community Land and Water Coalition joined the final day of the Walk, gave a blistering speech at the Boston Common Rally, and also took the time to record a great informational video during her visit with the Walk at the Nolumbeka Project’s annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival in Great Falls, Montague, on August 1st.
Statewide awareness and support is needed to stop the destruction. Check out her video, then please share the link with your local cable access station: “Sand Mining: Defending People and the Environment” https://vimeo.com/1215844693
Finally, the Walk blew the whistle on Governor Healey’s attempt to repeal the 1982 law passed by statewide referendum (passed by more than a 2/3rds majority of the voters) that put sensible guardrails in place before any NEW NUCLEAR POWER REACTORS can be built anywhere in the Commonwealth – Sacred Homelands to us all.
It would seem that those guardrails – requiring that a safe repository for nuclear waste and a workable evacuation plan be in place, and also requiring that a majority of the electorate vote in favor before any new nuclear reactors can be built in Massachusetts – are getting in the way of the Governor’s hopes for building new AI facilities in the state. So, repealing that law and overturning the democratic will of the voters expressed in the 1982 referendum is part of Healey’s energy bill.
We urged people everywhere we walked to contact these six legislators, who are seated on the closed-door conference committee that will soon determine the future of nuclear power in Massachusetts.
If Massachusetts allows new nuclear development, the likelihood is that Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine will follow suit. So if you care about the legacy of carcinogenic waste and daily radioactive emissions that inevitably will come with any new nuclear reactor (and there is NO WAY TO SAFELY STORE or contain NUCLEAR WASTE over the hundreds of thousands of years it will remain carcinogenic) please take the time to contact these legislators TODAY!
Please write, text, or call all six of these six legislators — today!
Sen. Michael Barrett: 617-722-1572 / Mike.Barrett@masenate.gov
Sen. Cynthia Creem: 617-722-1639 / Cynthia.Creem@masenate.gov
Sen. Bruce Tarr: 617-722-1600 / Bruce.Tarr@masenate.gov
Rep. Mark Cusack: 617-722-2030 / Mark.Cusack@mahouse.gov
Rep. Aaron Michlewitz: 617-722-2990 / Aaron.M.Michlewitz@mahouse.gov
Rep. Bradley Jones: 617-722-2100 / Bradley.Jones@mahouse.gov
Write, text, or call your own legislators too! Tell them: Save Chapter 503, No Secret Deal to Repeal the voter approved guardrails on nuclear power in our beautiful Commonwealth!
Thank the three senators for holding the line on democracy and the environment! The Senate rejected the Governor’s plan to repeal the 1982 referendum. Urge the three representatives to cede to the Senate and forbid the repeal. Thank you!
And last but not least. Please continue to support and share the link to our gofundme drive:
https://tinyurl.com/NewDawngofundme
The formal Walk for a New Dawn may be over, but walkers are already canvassing in the districts of these six legislators who hold the key to future nuclear development in the northeast. We need your help and support to continue printing and distributing the all important leaflets. exposing this secret deal to repeal the referendum to make way for more nukes in Massachusetts. The decision will come down within the next few weeks. Every contribution, large or small, will help us continue this essential outreach work.