TURNERS FALLS — Another campaign to change the name of Turners Falls has arisen, but it’s not going through the usual channels. It’s going straight to the top.
Turners Falls resident Ed Ryan said he plans to write to Gov. Charlie Baker, asking him to support legislative action to change the name of Turners Falls to Floyd’s Honor.
Ryan said the name would honor George Floyd, the Black man who was killed at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May, in an incident that has been viewed to be symptomatic of deep-seated racism in American society.
“If we’re going to change the name of Turners Falls,” Ryan said, “then why don’t we make a relevant statement about racism?”
A different campaign to change the name of Turners Falls to Great Falls is also in progress, though it is seeking an endorsement from a Montague Town Meeting vote, not from the governor.
Technically, changing the name of the village would be a state legislative action. Town Meeting — the town’s legislative body — can request such action of the state Legislature. Some towns have used that method for pursuing changes in the structure of their government, such as a change in the number of seats on a Select Board. This route demonstrates that the request is supported by the town.
On the other hand, directly petitioning the governor’s office is also a legitimate way to pursue changing the name of Turners Falls. Though the governor is not a member of the state House of Representatives or Senate, legislation does require his final approval, in most cases.
The name of Turners Falls memorializes a 1676 conflict between a Colonial Massachusetts militia and a local Nipmuc group camping by the falls between present-day Gill and Turners Falls.
The militia — about 150 soldiers, led by Capt. William Turner — killed an estimated 100 to 200 Nipmuc people, many of them women, children and elderly. Historians understand that a band of Nipmuc warriors was camping nearby, but that Turner deliberately chose to attack the peaceful group instead, possibly as retaliation for a recent raid on a Colonial settlement.
The conflict is considered by historians to be something of a turning point in King Philip’s War, hence the justification for honoring Turner.
But, in modern views of the legacy of colonialism in America, the name arguably glorifies the domination of a local indigenous people by foreign aggressors.
Great Falls has long been considered a potential alternative name and is already in use by some local organizations: for example, Great Falls Middle School, the Great Falls Discovery Center or the Great Falls Festival.
In June, an online campaign to change the name of the village to Great Falls — and a counter-campaign to keep the name — both drew considerable interest, so much so the town Select Board recently acknowledged the issue in a public meeting. Town Administrator Steve Ellis said he is working with the town’s legal counsel to determine how a potential name change might work.
If Town Meeting voters decide to pursue a name change, they would technically be asking the Massachusetts Legislature to establish a village within Montague, and to amend any legal references to Turners Falls accordingly.
Interestingly, this might be the first time that Massachusetts formally establishes a village within Montague. The town’s lawyers, in a preliminary review of potentially relevant state laws, did not find anything to establish the village of Turners Falls, Ellis said. However, there are legal references to Turners Falls in some federal governmental organizations, such as the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Residents can petition to put articles on Town Meeting warrants. Montague typically has a Special Town Meeting in the fall, and it takes 100 signatures of registered voters to place an article on a Special Town Meeting warrant. For annual Town Meeting, which is normally held in May, only 10 signatures are required.
Knox Huppert, who started the online petition the change the name to Great Falls, is now working with a few volunteers to collect signatures, the goal being to get the article on the warrant for the fall Special Town Meeting.
Because multiple volunteers are working on it, Huppert said they did not yet have a tally of the total number of signatures collected. But, organizers still think they are on track to have the question on the warrant, Huppert said.
Ryan, campaigning for Floyd’s Honor, had originally planned to also collect signatures to bring forward a citizen’s petition. But he changed his mind after some initial negative reactions, he said.
For about two hours on Friday morning, Ryan said, he stood in downtown Turners Falls with a sign promoting his proposed name change. Several people driving by honked their horns, which he took to be a positive response. He said one person shouted something very negative.
“It’s a subject that people don’t like,” he said. “It’s not as accepted as the Native American angle.”
But Ryan maintained that what sets his campaign apart is the fact that, as far as he knows, Massachusetts has never named a place after a Black person. Montague would be the first, he said.
“I think people are going to be surprised when they start to understand that issue,” Ryan said. “That’s institutionalized racism.”