WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A small but growing group of activists from around New England on Friday began a planned three-week trek across the commonwealth to deliver a message to Gov. Maura Healey.

 

David Detmold, 69, of Montague, is the leader of an effort to raise awareness about the Massachusetts Indigenous legislative agenda.

 

On Friday afternoon, he took a break after hiking from the New York State line to talk about that agenda in the shadow of the Williamstown Meetinghouse, home of the First Congregational Church.

 

Detmold said the group's objectives boil down to three main points: listen to Native nations, defend sacred homelands, honor all people.

 

On the first goal, a major point of emphasis is a decades-long campaign to change the Massachusetts state flag.

 

As the group makes its way east toward the State House in Boston, it is handing out literature explaining some of its causes, including one that breaks down the objectionable elements of the commonwealth's seal, which adorns the flag.

 

One element that jumps out: the image of what appears to be a colonialist wielding a sword above the image of a Native American.

 

"What does it mean when the illustrator is advised by the secretary of state at that time in the late 19th century to choose one particular sword as the model of the sword held in a very threatening manner above the head of the indigenous caricature?" Detmold asked a small crowd of supporters gathered at the Main Street church building. "That sword was a sword of Miles Standish.

 

"Native people remember that sword. They came to the succor of the Pilgrims when they were starving in their first winters on this land. And two years later, they were invited by Miles Standish to what we would call a parley. And he ambushed them and cut off their heads.

 

"That sword is remembered. It's a vile symbol."

 

Nearly 90 of the commonwealth's 351 cities and towns have voted in support of efforts to change the state flag, and, in 2023, a special commission established by the Legislature concluded that the current seal and state motto, "She seeks a quiet peace under the sword, but peace with liberty," are actively causing harm and ought to be revised.

 

Detmold, who has taken the cause of changing the flag to town meetings around the commonwealth, is collecting letters from residents to Healey along his route and will deliver them to the governor's office at the journey's end.

 

Joining Detmold on the first leg of his hike Friday was Priscilla Lynch of Conway, N.H.

 

She joined the cause through her association with an environmental social justice group known as the Connecticut River Defenders.

 

She said Friday that the whole walk was put together in less than a month, including finding overnight accommodations along the way. On Friday, they group planned to stay at a campground in North Adams, but later on in their journey they will shelter in private homes or on accommodating farms as they make their way in about 10-mile increments toward Beacon Hill.

 

"Our history with indigenous people is really a very violent one," Lynch said, explaining her motivation to join the walk. "We've certainly caused harm. We've stolen land. And the ways that we, as colonial settlers, act and react today still definitely affects indigenous folks.

 

"And to get to the place we want to be in this world, we need to be able to recognize those inequalities, the harms we've caused, and to move past them and to really put them in our past. And that means to really look at what this all means. One of those things is to, very simply, change the Mass flag and seal – not to mention mascots, not to mention Indigenous Peoples Day. These are things that should have been done a long time ago."

 

On Friday afternoon, he received one such letter from Dalton resident Cheryl Rose, co-chair of the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party.

 

"We write you in support of the Mass Indigenous Legislative Agenda's Priorities," Rose penned. "Only continued racism should stop our state leadership from immediately pursuing them. Any inconvenience is minor compared to the harm of inaction."

 

 

The flag is just one of the areas that proponents of change would like the commonwealth to address. Others include statewide adoption of Indigenous People's Day to replace Columbus Day, ensuring that public schools teach Native American culture and history, ensuring that Native American objects in private or public hands are not sold for profit, supporting the education of Native American children and banning racists mascots from the state's public schools.

 

"There are 60,000 indigenous people still brave enough to claim their status on our census," Detmold said. "Why should they? When their children go to our public schools, and all children are affected by this kind of racial stereotyping.

 

"Why is this bill still stuck in the Legislature? Even the state of New York, three years ago, decided more than 60 districts could no longer use them, and many of our neighboring states have done this. Why is Massachusetts always the last and least in its ability to make the most basic cultural reparations to the Native people who once saved us from starvation and whose lands we have not only stolen but despoiled?"

 

Learn more about efforts to change the Massachusetts seal and flag at changethemassflag.com. To learn more about the National Congress of American Indians' position on mascots, visit its website.