The 54th annual National Day of Mourning featured a strong emphasis on the violence in the Gaza Strip, where more than 13,000 Palestinian children, women, and men have been killed under Israel’s siege in the weeks since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.
PLYMOUTH — As many across the region and the nation prepared their Thanksgiving dinners Thursday afternoon, more than a thousand people gathered on Cole’s Hill overlooking Plymouth Harbor to memorialize the Indigenous people killed and displaced by European settlers and condemned all forms of colonization across the globe.
“What has been happening to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank since October is an increase in what has been an ongoing genocide directed against them by the settler colonial state of Israel,” said Mahtowin Munro, co-leader of the United American Indians of New England, which organizes the annual gathering on Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth. “What we are witnessing is a resurgence of the ongoing barbaric violence of settler colonialism there,” she said.
A woman held a sign supporting Palestinians during the 54th National Day of Mourning on Cole's Hill in Plymouth. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Many in the crowd wore keffiyeh, or black and white traditional Palestinian scarves, and some carried Palestinian flags. During breaks between speakers, the crowd chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “ From the river to the sea , Palestine will be free.” Munro and other speakers said there are connections between the struggle of Palestinian civilians under siege in Gaza, the majority of whom belong to families displaced from what is now Israel , and the Indigenous tribes that were forced off their land when white settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. “As Indigenous people, we understand firsthand that to be a colonized person is to exist under constant violence — physical, cultural, and psychological,” Munro said. “We call what is happening in Palestine genocide because that is what it is. ... We see the same features of Manifest Destiny and white supremacy that we have experienced [being] weaponized against Palestinians.” She added: “We speak plainly and say that this is also apartheid . Our organization opposed apartheid in South Africa decades ago, and we oppose it in Palestine now.”
Harriet Prince, of Vancouver, B.C., marched with demonstrators during the 54th National Day of Mourning on Cole's Hill in Plymouth. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff The gathering began around noon near the statue of the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit at the top of Cole’s Hill. Down the steep hill and across Water Street sits Plymouth Rock — or “Plymouth pebble” as some speakers referred to it. Mayflower II, a reproduction of the original ship that arrived in 1620 on land now known as Massachusetts, was docked a short distance away. Kisha James, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe and the granddaughter of Wamsutta Frank James, one of the founders of the National Day of Mourning in 1970, opened the event with remarks about the “Thanksgiving myth” surrounding the relationship between the English settlers and the native people they met after reaching the shores of this continent. James said the settlers first arrived on Cape Cod, not in Plymouth, and robbed Wampanoag graves and stole provisions of corn and beans. “Some Wampanoag ancestors did greet the pilgrims and saved them from starvation. And what did we, the Indigenous people of this continent, get in return for this kindness? Genocide, the theft of our lands, the destruction of our traditional ways of life, slavery, starvation, and never-ending oppression,” James said. James, who spoke in front of a large orange banner with the words, “We are not vanishing, we are not conquered, we are strong as ever,” recounted how in 1970 her grandfather had been invited by state officials to speak at a banquet celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in Plymouth. State officials who saw an advanced copy of his speech were dismayed that instead of praising the settlers’ arrival, he detailed the atrocities they committed against the Wampanoag. “They refused to allow him to deliver it, saying that the speech was too inflammatory,” James said. “They told him he could speak only if he were willing to offer false praise of the pilgrims. The organizers even offered to write a speech for him, one which would better fit with their settler narrative, but Wamsutta refused to have words put into his mouth.” James said her grandfather’s speech was printed in newspapers across the country, and he and other native activists began to plan a day of protest. On Thanksgiving in 1970, her grandfather and members of “at least 25 tribes, as well as a sprinkling of non-native allies,” gathered on Cole’s Hill for the first National Day of Mourning. She said they marched through Plymouth, boarded the Mayflower II, and buried Plymouth Rock in sand. The event on Thursday followed a similar plan, sans boarding the ship and burying Plymouth Rock. After a series of speakers, organizers led the growing crowd in a march down Main Street under a clear blue sky. The crowd then turned onto Brewster and eventually reached Water Street, where they marched to the Plymouth Rock monument and stopped to listen to more speakers. Among the marchers was Rhonda Wahya Hicks, a woman from Worcester who said she has Cherokee and Muscogee ancestors. She has attended the annual Day of Mourning in years past but noted the difference in this year’s event with the attention given to violence in the Middle East. “This is what our people went through,” she said, discussing the rising death toll in Gaza. “I’ve cried a lot because I’m a grandma, I’m a mom. ... It really, really breaks my heart what they’re going through, and we’ve got to be there for them.” Nick Stoico can be reached at . Follow him .
