When a crowd of nearly 100 craned their heads to look up at the billowing Massachusetts flag on Saturday, they saw a sword dangling over Thomas Little Shell’s head. Jean-Luc Pierite, the president of the Board of the North American Indian Center of Boston, spoke to the crowd about Little Shell’s life and legacy, demanding that the state remove this offensive imagery from its symbols.
Protesters gathered at Park Street station to rally against the state government’s recognition of Columbus Day as an official holiday. The group marched to the State House, the Old State House, through Faneuil Hall, and then to Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park by Boston Harbor, which they called the Waterfront Park.
A single car trailed in support of the rally while volunteer marshals blocked traffic. As the group headed from the State House to the Old State House, Boston Police officers at the scene began to question the individual in the car trailing the protest. Pierite, who saw the interaction, stepped in and was detained by BPD after he intervened. Protesters surrounded the four BPD cars that had appeared on the scene, demanding that they let him go. After the cars made their way out of the intersection, the volunteer marshals led the group to the Irish Famine Memorial at the corner of School and Washington Street.
The group waited there for 15 minutes until Pierite exited the back door of a BPD vehicle that stopped at the corner. As he made his way back into the group, he encouraged marchers to take a “collective exhale” and to “let that moment go.” The officers detained him and drove him around the block before they let him go, Pierite confirmed with The Beacon.
Pierite emphasized that he did not want the run-in with police to overshadow the significance of why the group had gathered in the first place.
“We demand the whole passage of the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda, and also we demand that this Commonwealth change its state flag, seal, and motto, because we are not going towards the future as racists,” Pierite told the crowd at the State House before the brush with police.
Massachusetts has been in the process of changing its flag, seal, and motto since 2020, and recently selected three finalists in each category. Indigenous activists have been fighting for five priorities in the state legislature: to remove racist mascots, to honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, to celebrate and teach Native American culture and history, to protect Native American heritage, and to support the education and futures of native youth.
“[Democrats] can put forward the most progressive platform, and yet, they don’t follow it,” Pierite told The Beacon. “We need to make sure that people understand in a Democrat-led state that we are still fighting for civil rights for Indigenous peoples.”
The city of Boston began recognizing the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2021 under an executive order by then-acting Mayor Kim Janey. The state government, however, still recognizes the day as Columbus Day, although there is legislation set forward to change it.
Beverly Cohen, a senior at Wellesley College and co-president of the school’s Native American and Indigenous Student Association, said that Columbus should not be honored because he was not honorable.
“I just remember my mom telling me when I was little, ‘don’t say that name around me,’” they recalled. “It’s gross that [Columbus Day] was recognized in the first place. It was a genocide, and the fact that people are so adamant about celebrating a genocide is expected, but also saddening.”
Many protesters also emphasized the importance of this continued fight against what they called the glorification of colonization.
“[Columbus Day] is all part of the myth that people put up. A big part of it is making it sound like this is something that happened forever ago, and there was nobody here to kind of justify what’s going on,” Joseph Rader, a member of the Quapaw Tribe who has lived in Boston for 20 years, said. “That’s why I think it’s important that we have an Indigenous Peoples’ Day—these are people that are still alive and living with the consequences of something that happened.”
As they marched through Faneuil Hall, the protesters also chanted in support of Palestine. Many wore keffiyehs, a scarf that has come to symbolize Palestinian resistance, and emphasized the importance of intersectionality of causes.
“Weapons against oppressed peoples and marginalized peoples have been developed on Indigenous peoples for centuries,” Benicio, a Tufts University student who declined to provide a last name for privacy reasons, said. “The very same tactics that we see police using against protesters now were developed in Palestine, and also in Turtle Island against Indigenous peoples.”
He added that the goals of various movements are intertwined.
“We cannot demand Indigenous Peoples’ Day without demanding justice for our Black relatives and such,” he said. “[Marginalized] politics are intertwined, and they share a common sense of ethics, morals, and methods.”
Gloria Colon, a member of the Mi’kmaq Nation, spoke to the crowd about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement. Indigenous women experience a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average, according to the National Congress of American Indians.
“Missing and murdered Indigenous people are left out of the news. I think all my life, I’ve only heard of three Indigenous people making the news,” she said. “Three, over 50 years. That is a lot that no one speaks about.”
As her eyes filled with tears, Colon urged the crowd to never forget those people, who she called her brothers and sisters.
“I just want everyone to remember: missing, murdered, indigenous people are not forgotten. We always remember them, but I want the world to realize we exist,” she added. “Our voices are here to remind everyone that we are here. We will always be here.”
Editor’s Note: Jean-Luc Pierite, who was detained by BPD, gave The Beacon explicit permission that the photo of him in handcuffs may be used.
