Organizers say the Walk For A New Dawn is a continuation of decades-old calls for Massachusetts to change the image of a sword raised over an Indigenous person surrounded by the motto "By the Sword We Seek Peace, But Peace Only Under Liberty."
Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians member Shawn Stevens, whose people once called the commonwealth home before being driven west by European settlers, said he finds the flag's message to be terrible.
“The sword above the Native figure, to me, represents a genocide," he told WAMC. "Native Americans did not have swords. It was nothing that we had used. A sword is an implement of war.”
The easterly walk along Route 2 is expected to reach the State House in Boston by Aug. 13.
