Paul Revere to the Rescue of the Massachusetts Flag?
A Path Forward for the Decades-Long Project to Change Some of the Oldest Public Symbols of the Commonwealth
In January 2021, then-Governor Charlie Baker signed a bill from the Massachusetts legislature establishing a Special Commission Relative to the Seal and Motto of the Commonwealth.
Under the establishing legislation, the purpose of the Commission is to [emphases added]:
(i) investigate the features of the official seal and motto of the commonwealth, under sections 1 to 6, inclusive, of chapter 2 of the General Laws, including those features that may be unwittingly harmful to or misunderstood by the citizens of the commonwealth; and (ii) examine and study the seal and motto of the commonwealth to ensure that they faithfully reflect and embody the historic and contemporary commitments of the commonwealth to peace, justice, liberty and equality and to spreading the opportunities and advantages of education.
The commission shall make recommendations for a revised or new design of the seal of the commonwealth and a revised or new motto of the commonwealth and shall make recommendations for an educational program on the history and meaning of the seal and motto.
What the endeavor of the Commission really points to is the redesign of the state flag. So, the focus on the “seal and motto” in the title and description of the Commission is a little confusing.
Sorting this out requires us to define a few terms.
The Massachusetts General Laws, referenced in the establishing legislation, includes separate definitions for:
- Coat of arms of the commonwealth
- Seal of the commonwealth
- Flag of the commonwealth
The coat of arms is the composite image—and just the image—that includes the Native American figure and star superimposed on a shield; the heraldic arm-and-sword element above the shield; and, anchored below the shield, a ribbon with a Latin motto Ense petit placidam sub libertate quieteme — which, roughly translated, means: “By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”
Both the seal, with its outer rings and additional text…
…and the flag are defined in the General Laws as “delivery systems”—my phrase—for the coat of arms.
But, the flag is by far the most visible of the three. And, it is the flag that two or more generations of Massachusetts residents — members of the state’s Indigenous communities, in particular—have sought to change, noting that the European-wielded sword in the coat of arms hangs ominously over the Native figure like a “sword of Damocles,” an image that can be seen as reinforcing and even justifying the subjugation of Native peoples in the colonization project.
Currently, the Massachusetts General Laws defines the “flag of the commonwealth” as — in effect—a flag of the coat of arms of the commonwealth. This means that changing the coat of arms is a first step towards changing the flag.
But, it is precisely…
(a) the Commission’s charge to “make recommendations for a revised or new design of the seal”—including the coat of arms—and
(b) the linkage, in the current legislation, between the arms and the flag
…that creates the opening for the Commission to offer recommended legislation to de-link the arms and the flag.
This would pave the way for the creation of a flag that is more than just a “new seal on the old bedsheet” — but, rather, something that reflects a totally new vision for the flag.
Ultimately, the Commission can only recommend. It’s the legislature that has the authority to translate the Commission’s recommendations into law and practice.
The Commission’s recommendations are due in November.
Let’s assume that, in response to a recommendation(s) from the Special Commission Relative to the Seal and Motto of the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts legislature approves a new coat of arms (and seal) then moves forward with a project to create a new Massachusetts flag that is not necessarily tethered to the arms.
Any existing Massachusetts coat of arms (or seal) would by definition be a key resource for conceiving and designing a new flag―even if the legislature did not contemplate simply putting the arms (or seal) on a piece of cloth and calling that a flag.
So, it’s vitally important that whatever coat of arms and motto emerge from the Commission’s work be as conceptually elegant as possible.
That begins with the imperative that the Commission produce lists of conceptually elegant ingredients — symbols, ideas—for the public, the legislature, and eventually designers to consider in the creation of a new arms and motto.
So far, the Commission’s work on this front has been underwhelming (see Postscript below).
Within the Commission, the initial effort to produce lists of symbols and ideas to be used in the creation of a new coat of arms and motto has been shared by two subcommittees:
- A Research & Design committee was charged with producing a list of possible visual symbols to be used in a coat of arms.
- A Histories & Usages committee was charged with producing a list of possible ideas and terms for a motto.
Eventually, the full Commission whittled down longer lists of symbols and terms into the following shortlists that will help to drive public surveys the Commission will undertake over the next couple of months.
Included in the Commission’s interim report published on 31 December 2022 were “Initial Findings” in which the specific symbols here were listed as parenthetical “examples” within three broader categories: flora, fauna, and geographic features.
Meetings of the full Commission have included reports from the Research & Design and History & Usages subcommittees. A review of the videos of these meetings and the minutes of Commission and subcommittee meetings (included in the Commission’s interim report) suggests that:
- Research & Design focused mostly on what symbols not to include: a human figure or a sword. On the question of what symbols to include, members of the full Commission gravitated towards the lowest-hanging fruit — including items that already are recognized in the Massachusetts General Laws as state symbols.
- Histories & Usages—the committee’s chair, in particular—was somewhat fixated on “commonwealth.” This word already is in the English version of the text on the ring of the seal and likely would be on the ring of any future seal — so doesn’t need to be repeated in the motto. Although committee members seemed to agree that the word itself need not be in the motto, the prominence in the shortlist of “commonwealth” and the related “for the common good” could be seen as reflecting the difficulty the committee had in getting outside this loop. Beyond that, members of the Commission didn’t venture far from words—liberty, equality, peace—that already are in the group’s establishing legislation.
The lists of symbols and terms above were presented at the December 2022 meeting of the Commission. There was no apparent effort to link two or more symbols—or two or more terms—in any meaningful way, and no apparent effort to harmonize any combination of symbols and terms.
The Commission did not meet again until June 2023; and, the matter of symbols and terms—artistic and literary / philosophical resources for the coat of arms and motto—was not revisited at that meeting.
Instead, the Commission turned its attention to the creation of a public survey to gauge the opinion of Massachusetts residents about what a new state coat of arms and motto should look like.
A key baseline for the survey will be the Commission’s internal lists of symbols and terms from December 2022. Perhaps it is out of a well-intentioned desire to avoid giving the appearance of “stacking the deck” for any particular design or motto that the Commission at this “middle stage” of its work has drawn the line at offering only lists of symbols and terms before inviting Massachusetts residents to weigh in via public surveys or live forums.
But, unless there is a groundswell in favor of an imaginative grassroots proposal for a new Massachusetts coat of arms that uses different symbols, and that ties these symbols to a meaningful motto, it’s to be expected that public survey and forum responses will reflect—and be seen as supporting—the bureaucratic suggestions the Commission currently has on offer. (The public’s angry rejection, in 2002, of the six initial design concepts for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site in downtown Manhattan is an exception that proves the rule of how things typically go in a government-backed design process where public input is solicited.)
This is a lamentable prospect—especially given that, apparently, no single option on the Commission’s shortlists of possible symbols and terms for a new coat of arms received more than a tiny handful of “votes” from the Commission’s 19 members.
We noted earlier that symbols used on a government’s coat of arms (or seal) can become source material in the design of the government’s flag.
What is wanted for a new coat of arms of Massachusetts, then, are symbols that can be used to tell the Big Story of Massachusetts and its people. I would go further to suggest that these ideally should be “foundational” symbols from the period between Indigenous-English contact and the Revolutionary War.
Comes the question: Official though these may be, in virtue of being listed in the Massachusetts General Laws…
Does the cod — the cranberry — the chickadee — or even a tree (pine or elm) rise to the level of being the kind of narrative symbol, with the necessary interpretive richness, to be the starting point for telling the particular story of Massachusetts—and for telling this story to those inside and outside the state?
Much as I love the Massachusetts story of the cod, my own answer is No.
I live in Boston. My wife was born and raised on the North Shore (Ipswich, Danvers). In fact, part of my wife’s family—on her mother’s side—traces its Massachusetts origins to one of the “second Mayflower” voyages of 1629–1639.
Over the last couple of months, as I’ve tried to think about what symbols(s) might have stronger legs, I’ve kept returning to…
PAUL REVERE’S LANTERNS—“One if by land, and two if by sea…”
So, last week, as I was making my way through the videos of the Commission’s meetings and was watching the October 2022 meeting, my ears perked up when I heard Commission member Micah Whitson note that the original 1950s logo for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority featured Paul Revere.
If that name rings a bell, Whitson is known in flag circles for his 2020 Great River Flag design proposal for Mississippi—and for contributing the Native American star to the flag that the state eventually adopted.
Since 1990, the Mass Pike logo has been the pilgrim hat:
From the late 1950s to 1990, the logo was a more comical image of a pilgrim hat being punctured by an Indigenous arrow:
In the original Revere logo—in use for only a few years, from the early to the late 1950s—a lantern hangs from the end of the musket of the figure on the porch:
Whitson explains the evolution, starting at 48:20 (lightly edited for clarity):
We’ve had discussions about human representation or non-human representation. My recommendation as a designer would be to avoid human representation. But, using the Mass Pike as an example: The Mass Pike Authority, at some point, the logo for that, the visual for that was Paul Revere riding on a horse; and there was someone standing outside of a house with a lantern. It was very humanoid. And, it went from that to the artifacts of humans. So, it went to a pilgrim hat. From the ’50s to ’90s, it was a pilgrim hat with an arrow through it. But, those are artifacts of people and not people themselves. Ultimately, in 1990, it was changed to just a pilgrim hat.
I think any opportunity to say, “Hey, you can represent colonists or Indigenous people without having to see a colonist or an Indigenous person,” would be helpful to communicate, so that we can make sure that we are hearing what people say about “I want to make sure that these different groups are represented”—but they can be represented in artifacts or in abstraction without having to be literal about their appearance on the seal.
Some Indigenous members of the Commission have spoken favorably about the possibility of removing the Native figure on the current coat of arms, seal, and flag and replacing it with a different Native figure. It seems possible-to-likely that Whitson said what he did to address this specific idea.
But, Whitson also was making the larger point that it’s important to expand options by keeping human artifacts in the conceptual design toolbox.
Here’s one of Paul Revere’s lanterns that is in the collection of the Concord Museum, in Concord, Mass.
With the right interpretive lens, I think Paul Revere’s lantern can help to tell the Big Story of Massachusetts.
Indeed, the image of this lantern with a lit candle can speak to all the values in the grand narrative that has been called up in the establishing legislation for the Commission and in the work of the Commission itself…
Knowledge => Respect => Justice => Equality => Peace => Liberty
Also…
A lantern symbolizes “leading the way in the darkness” — a great symbol for a state that has been “the first” in so many pioneering areas.
Initially, it occurred to me that an image of two lanterns, side by side— “two if by sea” — could be especially powerful in showing that none of these values of knowledge, respect, justice, equality, peace, and liberty can be realized as a solo project.
Rather, these values must be forged in relationship to — and in community with — others.
But, why not have one of the two symbols to be Indigenous? What about a rolled-bark torch—a torch typical of 17th-and-18th century Algonquin-speaking tribes on this land—on the left, and Revere’s lantern on the right?
Here’s an example of a rolled birchbark torch from an Algonquin-speaking tribe in Quebec:
Yes, this particular example looks a little like ganja.
But, fire is sacred in Indigenous symbology. And, it should be possible to depict an upright image of a flaming rolled-bark torch used by the Indigenous peoples—Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett—who lived on the land now known as Massachusetts in the 17th and 18th centuries. And, it should possible to depict this is as something that clearly is a torch (and that does not evoke Bob Marley).
Imagine these two symbols side-by-side in a coat of arms, a seal, and a flag: a flaming Algonquin torch on the left and Paul Revere’s burning lantern on the right.
- The position of the torch on the left and the vertically higher position of the torch’s flame relative to the flame of the lantern would give the Indigenous symbol a subtle graphic prominence.
- And the side-by-side orientation of the torch and the lantern would reinforce Indigenous ideals of reciprocity and kinship.
Could a Torch and Lantern coat of arms and a Torch and Lantern flag become new symbols of Massachusetts?
POSTSCRIPT
It’s evident from watching the full arc of the Commission’s meetings (videos) that the Commission means well. To be fair, the Commission has been hamstrung by a Legislature that created the Commission then did not fund it for two years. And, the Legislature’s failure to prioritize the Commission’s requests for extensions has meant that the Commission often has been left to continue its work while being in the dark about how much time it had left to complete it.
At the same time, it’s hard to keep from wishing that the Commission had adopted a more ambitious and urgent schedule. It’s hard for a group like this to maintain focus and build up a head of steam when it’s meeting only once a month — for an hour.
As often is the case with government-created panels, this Commission has spent a lot of time hammering out protocols for surveys, education programs, and other forms of public outreach.
There are individuals on the Commission who seem genuinely engaged in the Commission’s primary charge: to advance the conversation about the Massachusetts coat of arms (and the state’s flag) in new directions. But, there also are members who seem content to nibble around the edges by simply removing what is objectionable and finding a slightly different way to frame what already is on the table.
What this body needs is a critical mass of members who are hard-wired, i.e., who have both the aptitude and the drive, (a) to think productively about root causes and old approaches; (b) to respond by bringing compelling new approaches to the table — approaches that integrate values, symbols, and design; and (c) to fight for the incorporation of those new approaches into a design plan of action for the group.
Indeed, the make-up of the Commission should reflect the understanding that, ultimately, the project to create a new coat of arms, seal, and flag for Massachusetts is a DESIGN challenge requiring that problem-solving designers and design thinkers be at the table from the get-go—not brought in at the end to select the window dressing once the house has already been built.
As it is, there is only one token designer on the Commission, Micah Whitson. The rest of the 19-member body are historians, cultural institutionalists, Indigenous heritage leaders, and elected officials. These are people whose input is important. And, they know what they know. But—as the proceedings make painfully clear—they don’t seem to know design, and they don’t seem to know how to have the necessary conversation in which design is embedded into every aspect of the search for a solution.
So, it’s not surprising that what we have is a Commission who took 18 months to agree, in December 2022, with what the Legislature already had said 2 years earlier, in January 2021—that Massachusetts needs a new coat of arms and seal that conveys ideas that are historic and meaningful to the Commonwealth—but that hasn’t really moved the needle very far beyond that.
The Commission seems never to have graduated from being (a) a collection of individuals listening to one another’s concerns…
…to being (b) a unified cohort brokering a Big Idea capable of capturing the imaginations of the Massachusetts legislature and public.
Looking at the footage of its proceedings, this group seems plodding, tired, and ready to go home — as though it has lulled itself into believing that “good enough” is good enough.
This does not bode well for a creative result.
Hopefully, there still is time for new energy to break through.
John Lumea is the author of “The Original San Francisco Flag Was Better and Cooler. Let’s Bring It Back!” — a design history of the San Francisco flag.
