By Elena Pejic
Boston University News Service
The Massachusetts Seal, Flag, and Motto Advisory Commission has asked for another extension to redesign the state flag to remove symbols of oppression towards the Native American community.
The state legislature created the current commission in 2023, with an initial goal to provide recommendations for the design by July 2025. However, after failing to meet that goal, the deadline was then pushed out until Dec. 15, where it still currently stands.
The commission, which has not met since August, says concerns about including public input are the main reason for the delay.
“The Seal, Flag and Motto Advisory Commission has been hard at work engaging experts and the public about what they want to see in our state’s symbols,” said a spokesperson from the Governor’s Office. “We believe that more time is needed to ensure robust community engagement.”
Public hearings must be held before the final recommendations are revealed, but the hearings have yet to be scheduled, further continuing the delay in the commission’s work.
Jean-Luc Pierite, the president of the Board of Directors for the North American Indian Center of Boston, said he understands the delays in order to maintain public input.
“I actually do see that there’s a need for some time, because there was supposedly going to be a public hearing process, and I know that there was a delay in getting those public hearings scheduled,” said Pierite. “I can understand, from that level, needing to have an extension to have more public input on this process.”
Nonetheless, Pierite said the process to change the flag has been “protracted,” as the efforts to redesign began almost 40 years ago.
In 1985, the original bill was proposed by State Rep. Byron Rushing and other advocates, but failed to pass. It then took until 2021 for the original commission to be formed, which did not produce any concrete recommendations.
“Whatever time it takes and whatever the process is that we can get the most comprehensive public input on a recommendation…I think it’s something that would be helpful,” said Pierite.
John “Jim” Peters Jr, the executive director of the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs, said he is remaining “patient” in the face of continuous delays.
“It’s been that long and it’s a complicated issue, so I try to be patient and see what comes out of it,” said Peters.
Allyson LaForge, the Abbott Lowell Cummings Postdoctoral Fellow in American Material Culture at Boston University, said it is important to understand the decades-long history behind the flag and its symbols.
LaForge said the flag was created in the late 1890s by non-Native people during a time when the state was focused on diminishing Native culture.
“Massachusetts was making concerted efforts to transform Native people into citizens, so in other words, assimilate them into the civic fabric of the state and diminish their tribal sovereignty,” said LaForge.
The state flag includes a disembodied arm holding a sword that belongs to Myles Standish, an English military leader that forcefully displaced Native people from their lands and killed many in violent raids. The sword is held above the head of a Native person.
“We need to understand, for example, Myles Standish as a historical figure who ambushed and massacred native people,” said LaForge.
“I think that the biggest issue that we’ve had with the seal was the sword’s over the Indian’s head,” said Peters. “It’s offensive to Native people.”
LaForge said it is important for BU students to be active members in the conversation on campus as well.
“I think it’s important to be engaged politically and to think about what are the conversations that are happening,” said LaForge.
LaForge said students can reach out to legislators through https://changethemassflag.com/ along with following the progress of the commission’s meetings online to become familiar with the flag’s deeper history.
LaForge herself also will be teaching a class at BU called Placing Public History: Memory, Monumentalization, and the Built Environment. The course will explore revolutionary history in the context of resistance to colonialism, slavery and militarization.
Pierite said this conversation around the flag is part of a larger push to hold governments responsible, particularly when it comes to current events, such as immigration.
“There’s many different things that we’re trying to bring light to,” said Pierite. “It really helps us to have this seal and motto conversation to continue to be that beacon that shines that light on these broader issues.”
