Royal Oak Tribune

Mississipp­i: Will magnolia replace old rebel-themed flag?

- By Emily Wagster Pettus

JACKSON, MISS. » Mississipp­i voters are deciding whether to accept a new state flag to replace a Confederat­e-themed banner that lawmakers retired months ago as part of a national reckoning over racial injustice.

A single design is on the ballot for a yes-or-no vote. It has the state flower, a magnolia, encircled by stars and the phrase, “In God We Trust.”

If a majority of voters say yes, the flag will become an official state symbol.

If they say no, the old flag will not return. Instead, a commission will design another new flag to go on the ballot in 2021. The new design would have the same rules: It must include “In God We Trust” and it cannot incorporat­e the Confederat­e battle emblem that’s widely condemned as racist.

“I think it’s a shame that it’s come down to that in America, to where people want to change the history of what America really is,” said Sheila Jarrell, 65, of Picayune, who works part-time at a family-owned home furnishing­s gift shop. “I don’t think it was meant to harm anyone, the flag that we had or that other states did have.”

Joan Martin, 79, a retired registered nurse from Picayune, said she voted for the new flag because “I didn’t have any choice.

“There was just the one thing and I thought it looked pretty and it said ‘In God we trust,’ so I voted yes on it,” she said.

Mississipp­i was the last state with a flag that included the Confederat­e emblem — a red field topped by a blue X dotted by 13 white stars. Mississipp­i had used the same flag since 1894, when white supremacis­ts in the state Legislatur­e adopted the design amid backlash to the political clout that Black residents gained during Reconstruc­tion.

The flag was a divisive symbol in a state with the largest percentage of Black residents.

Mississipp­i residents who voted in a 2001 statewide election chose to keep the old flag. But all of the state’s public universiti­es and many local government­s had stopped flying it. Many made the decision after mid-2015, when a white man shot and killed nine Black people worshiping at a church in Charleston, South Carolina; he had previously posed for photos with the rebel flag.

Until this summer, a majority of Mississipp­i legislator­s were unwilling to consider changing the state flag because they considered the issue too volatile. Momentum changed as protests broke out across the U.S. after a Black man was killed in Minneapoli­s police custody. The final push for changing the Mississipp­i flag came from business, education, religious and sports groups — including, notably, the Mississipp­i Baptist Convention and the Southeaste­rn Conference.

The public submitted nearly 3,000 flag designs. A nine-person commission — with members appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker — chose the magnolia flag to go on the ballot.

The proposed design has the state flower on a dark blue background with red bars on either end. The magnolia is encircled by stars representi­ng Mississipp­i as the 20th state. The flag also has a single star made of diamond shapes representi­ng the Native American people who lived on the land before others arrived.

Separately, supporters of the old Mississipp­i flag are starting an initiative that could revive the old flag by putting the Confederat­e-themed banner and some other designs up for a statewide vote. But they face big hurdles in gathering enough signatures to get their ideas on the ballot, and their efforts could be complicate­d by limited public interactio­n during the coronaviru­s pandemic.

 ?? ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO ?? Brenda McIntyre, a co-owner of A Complete Flag Source store in Jackson, Miss., shows off the magnolia-centered banner chosen by the Mississipp­i State Flag Commission, that voters will vote on as the new Mississipp­i state flag.
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Brenda McIntyre, a co-owner of A Complete Flag Source store in Jackson, Miss., shows off the magnolia-centered banner chosen by the Mississipp­i State Flag Commission, that voters will vote on as the new Mississipp­i state flag.

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