Massachusetts lawmakers have passed a bill that takes a big step toward changing the state’s official seal and motto. The new bill creates a commission to review and recommend changes to the state seal and motto. This step comes after years of concerns from Native American residents, as the current seal shows a hand holding a sword over the head of a Native American.
Connecting Point’s Ray Hershel talked to the bill’s sponsor in the House, Northampton State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa, about why she feels a change to the state seal is long overdue.
Read the full transcript
Zydalis Bauer, Connecting Point: Massachusetts lawmakers have passed a bill that takes a big step toward changing the state’s official seal and motto. This comes after years of concerns from Native American residents as the current seal shows a hand holding a sword over the head of a Native American.
The new bill creates a commission to review and recommend changes to the state seal and motto and Connecting Point’s Ray Hershal talked to the bill’s sponsor in the House, Northampton State Representative Lindsey Sabadosa, about why she feels a change to the state seal is long overdue.
Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, (D – Northampton): This legislation has been proposed for many, many years. So, really we’re coming up on the tail end of 30 years that people have been compiling conversations about this bill. And so, I was very grateful that all that groundwork had been laid, it made it much easier to talk to colleagues.
But honestly, we had a lot of support from House leadership. We had great conversations both with Speaker DeLeo and then with Speaker Mariano. And we had a chairman of House Ways and Means who really understood the legislation from day one. We had organized a call with him to try to convince him to support it, and he started that call off saying that, you know, he just really understood it, that the the symbols of the past are not always accurate representations of the present. And we need to have conversations about those.
We also had a really committed chairwoman, Chairwoman Gregoire, from the State Administration and Oversight Committee. And she was great along the way, she kept directing us to new people to talk to. And in the end, we spoke to over 100 legislators on the House side and made sure that they understood the bill, and that we had their support.
And we were able to pass it, pretty much at the very last minute. I think it was either the very-last or the second-to-last pieces of legislation that passed on January 5th or January 6th, rather, at about 5:00 a.m.
Ray Hershel: The state seal, as it currently existed, showed a sword hanging over the head of a Native American with the motto “by the sword, we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.” Why was this so offensive to so many?
Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa: Right. Well, the sword that was depicted on the — that is currently depicted on the state seal and flag — is a sword that was used to behead one of the native leaders. The image of the native person on our flag is sort of a Frankenstein version of what the artist deemed the best and best representation of what a native should look like.
So, I think that by today’s standards, we can all agree that there are probably better symbols that could represent the state of Massachusetts. And this legislation will seek to put together a committee, a commission, that will look at what our flag currently looks like, what our our model looks like.
We can look at the many examples we’ve had in the past, because this is not the only seal Massachusetts has ever had. In fact, in the State House, you see a long history of various seals that have represented the Commonwealth at one point or another. And they’ll try to see, you know, what should we do going forward?
And I think we’re at a really interesting moment because we are also following the example of another state. Mississippi very recently changed its state flag. They went through this process. They put together a commission and they eventually went to the ballot to ask the voters what their flag should look like.
Now, I don’t know if Massachusetts will go through that process, but it would be interesting to have a really in-depth and robust conversation about this, particularly as we hit some important anniversaries. Last year was the anniversary of the four hundredth anniversary of the Plymouth colony. And in 10 years, we’ll be looking at the four hundredth anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the founding of the General Court.
So, it is a really good time to have these conversations. And I’m excited that so many people were eager to do that. And we’re going to see this commission formed and hopefully have some recommendations for us towards the end of the year.
Ray Hershel: And who specifically will be sitting on this commission? And as I understand it, then the commission itself won’t necessarily recommend a new seal, that may be up for further discussion and even the public having input?
Rep. Lindsay Sabados: Exactly. So, the commission is not going to just come out and say “this is what the flag should look like.” We’re going to ask for input. People will be on the commission from different state agencies. So, the Mass Historical Society, the office of the secretary of state there will be appointees by the speaker, the governor, the attorney general.
But really, as we were crafting the legislation and trying to decide who should be on the commission, we wanted to make sure that there were a lot of native voices. Massachusetts has a deep history of Native Americans not really getting their say in our in our government, and not really acknowledging that these were native lands. Plymouth Colony was founded on native lands, there were indigenous people living here.
And so we wanted to make sure that all of those people had a seat at the table moving forward, so that we can come up with something that represents our history, our culture and the values that we want to represent us moving forward.
