Ardent supporters of Salem's current seal maintain that its design was an expression of benevolence toward the city's Acehnese trading partners. Because its creators had good intentions—look at that dove!—the seal cannot possibly be racist.
In separate articles, I analyze the historic evidence relating to the motivations behind the seal's design. Here I examine why the seal's history is irrelevant to the current debate regarding whether to replace it.
A Public Symbol Is Not A History Book
To be absolutely clear: I am NOT saying that the Salem's maritime history doesn't matter. In fact, not a single person calling for the seal to be changed has expressed a desire to erase any aspect of Salem's history. If anything, we are asking for a more honest and rigorous examination of this history.
Numerous books and dissertations have been written about Salem’s maritime history during this 18th and 19th centuries. It is unrealistic to expect a public symbol to encapsulate the complex history of this era.
Most people—including most Salem residents—are unaware of the city's trading history with the Aceh. Even knowing this history, it is not obvious that the man depicted on our seal is an Acehnese merchant. The average person viewing the seal likely assumes that this man is Chinese thanks to anti-Asian tropes in our visual culture. That might be frustrating to Salem's armchair historians, but that is the reality.
The seal is ubiquitous in Salem: it appears on our street osigns, lamp posts, and on our trash and recycling bins. It's on all of the city's legal documents and official announcements. It's part of the city's digital brand identity, and appears on its website and social media platforms. It is literally impossible to add a label that explains the seal's history and meaning everywhere it appears.
A seal represents the identity and values of a city. It isn't supposed to provide a history lesson. The main question before us is whether a seal designed 200 years ago still reflects the diverse city that Salem is today.
Salem's AAPI residents have come forward to say that the city is hurtful. The intensions of the city aldermen in 1839 have no bearing on its harmful impact today. That is why the history is irrelevant to this debate.
Forefather Lives Matter
In his public remarks about the city seal, Councillor Ty Hapworth has repeatedly worried about the perception of Salem's forefathers. In his January newsletter he wrote the following about the aldermen who approved the seal in 1839:
Yes, they were white men of privilege, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. But in trying to move away from stereotypes, we should be careful not to replace them with new ones of our own. Reducing these civic leaders to a single, flattened idea of who they were risks overlooking the fact that they devoted themselves to this city in a very different era and had a serious and informed understanding of the role Salem was playing in the wider world.
At the August 4th Committee of the Whole meeting where he voted against the City Seal Task Force's recommendation to replace the seal, Hapworth said:
Our predecessors sitting in these exact same seats (literally) made the decision that produced the seal that's now before us. We need not assume they were entirely right or entirely wrong but we should resist flattening them or those engaged in this discussion today into caricatures. Our responsibility is to understand the choices they made, consider the work now before us, and exercise our own judgement with fairness and humility.
The title of Hapworth's recent newsletter explaining why he voted to keep the current seal at the August 4th Committee of the Whole meeting is quite revealing: "The Salem City Seal: What Do We Owe the Past . . . What Do We Owe the Future?" The question of what we owe our present is conspicuously absent.
Before the City Council votes on whether to replace the seal, I truly hope that Councillor Hapworth remembers that he is neither a historian nor a museum curator. He is a city leader. And as a Councillor at Large, he serves AAPI constituents who need him to understand that they have never felt fully welcome in Salem. He has a responsibility to work toward making Salem a place that embraces and respects everyone who lives here. That responsibility supersedes any obligation he owes to Salem's forefathers.
Councillors Focused on the Seal's Impact
I am grateful to Councillors Katelyn Holappa, Andrew Smith, and Andrew Varela for their anti-racist approach to the city seal debate. At the August 4th Committee of the Whole meeting, they focused squarely on the harmful impact the seal is having on Salem's AAPI community.
In her speech, Councilor Holappa, who is Salem's first (and so far only) transgender city councillor warned of the dangers of ignoring the harmful impact the seal has on Salem's AAPI community. If people think that the seal depicts a racial slur, they will assume that Salem legitimizes hate against the AAPI community.
"I do not believe that you can address that kind of willful ignorance with education, because the kind of ignorance...is the kind that resorts to violence. We need to take this seriously. And I could tell you firsthand how dangerous it is to have our government legitimize hate against a specific portion of the population, and again, the original intent matters less than the contemporary reality that our residents are living."
Councillor Holappa's remarks remind us of the current political climate in which the city seal debate is unfolding. We are in the midst of a fascist takeover of our federal government. For some of us, the dangers of this present moment are not theoretical, which is why we must heed the warnings of our neighbors who are under threat due to Trump Administration policies.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has prioritized deportations of immigrants from Asia Pacific and South Asia. Members of the AAPI community have reported experiencing hate speech while walking in Salem. As we've written in another article in this series, anti-Asian hate is prevalent in Massachusetts and throughout the United States. The AAPI community is already hurting, and the those vehemently opposed to changing the seal are piling onto this pain.
Replacing the Seal Would Not "Erase History"
One of the most disingenuous assertions in this debate is that replacing the seal would "erase" Salem's maritime history. In his his speech at the August 4th Committee of the Whole meeting, Councillor Varela shut this nonesense down:
We can acknowledge and preserve the history of the seal while also recognizing that public symbols carry meaning in the present. A symbol may have been accepted in the past but it (can) still be experienced as harmful or exclusionary today. Moving forward does not require us to forget history. It requires us to interpret it honestly and ensure that our civic identity reflects its values we claim to uphold.
It's important to not conflate teaching history with honoring it. There are other ugly aspects of Salem's history that recognize (albeit inadequately) but do not celebrate. The Derby family and other Salem merchants amassed considerable wealth trading slaves. They also owned slaves themselves or "rented" them for their businesses.
Long after slavery was technically outlawed in Massachusetts, Salem merchants still traded slaves and profited from the slavery economy. Seafarers regularly travelled to the Caribbean to sell provisions like fish and meat, as well as Asian goods. During these trips, they purchase goods produced by slaves (e.g., sugar, molasses, rum), which they sold locally or in Europe.
During the City Seal Task Force meeting held on June 16, 2025, Alphonse Wright reminded Vijay Joyce of this moral stain Salem's history. Joyce had asked:
"With everything that comes along with the history of trade in the United States with foreign lands, does that mean depicting trade in any way, even if it built up our society of Salem, is wrong?"
Wright replied:
"No, a ship [on the seal] is fine. But let's look at the other place where Salem made a lot of its money. People that look like me. We don't have shackles on our city seal. We made a lot of money on the transatlantic slave trade. Let's not kid ourselves here."
Salem's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade is documented at local sites like the Derby House. But we don't honor this shameful history on our seal. (We still sadly have a street and wharf named after the Derbys, though.)
There are ample ways to recognize Salem's trade history with Aceh without whitewashing it. The Peabody Essex Museum and the Salem Maritime Park have dedicated significant resources toward educating the public about Salem's history. These institutions could design permanent exhibitions to educate residents and visitors about Salem's historic ties with Aceh, which would be a much better way of preserving this complex history.
Further Resources
Rabbi Sandra Lawson
Jamie Utt