Mississippi's Flag: The Issue May Be Coming to a Head Again

JACKSON, Miss.–Thirteen years ago Mississippians voted to keep the state flag with the Confederate “Stars and Bars”. Lately there has been a new wave of calls for the legislature to take it off the pole.

Sunday’s incident at Ole Miss, where a Georgia flag, pre-2003, with the “Stars and Bars”, was draped over the statue of James Meredith, has sparked some discussion from the state’s NAACP president, Derrick Johnson, who says he was part of a lawsuit in the 1990s to get the flag removed.

“It’s a symbol that has prevented the NCAA from playing games in the State of Mississippi,” he said. “We must move beyond our past and not continue to remember a legacy based in racial hatred in a way in which it doesn’t empower all Mississippians.”

He’s not the only one. State Sen. Kenny Wayne Jones (D-Canton) recently called for a change to the flag. The California Bar Assoc. said it would not display Mississippi’s flag because they believe it represents racial hatred.

On Tuesday’s “Head to Head” on SuperTalk Mississippi, hosts Matt Wyatt and Richard Cross opened the phone lines to see not only what Mississippians thought about the Ole Miss incident, but also about the state flag, and whether it should be changed.

“I’d love to hear from somebody elected to public office in the State of Mississippi to explain to me one reason not to change our current flag that is offensive to many,” said Cross.

“It’s a shame that I see every other SEC school getting to put their state flag on their helmets and we can’t because of the history. So it may be time to let the change happen,” said one caller. “It’s gonna have to be a legislative thing because I don’t believe the voters will change it.”

“It’s a part of history and I’m tired of hearing racism this and racism that, the state flag is the state flag. Get over it,” said another caller.

“Slavery was under the American flag. Under the American flag we slaughtered the Indians,” said a caller. “You’re saying most of the people in Mississippi are uneducated and can’t make a choice. You said it had to be done legislatively.”

If the show is any indication, most of the callers seemed to favor changing the flag if it is a hindrance to Mississippi’s progress.

Here's a little history.Mississippi Blacks Vote for Reb Flag Vote on Fate of State Flag Was Not a Racial Issue The vote in Mississippi to retain the 104-year-old state flag, which includes the Confederate battle flag as part of its design, is being depicted in the news media as a racial issue. It isn't. Yes, I know a lot of liberals and professional racists say the battle flag is a symbol of racism and slavery. Well, then, how do you explain that polls conducted by Mississippi's newspapers showed that 30 percent of the blacks favored the old flag? It's my belief that it has been an artificial controversy from the beginning,a fund-raising cause for the NAACP and an excuse to feel self-righteous for white liberals. A majority of Americans, black and white, I would guess, would be hard put to describe their state's flag accurately, much less a historical flag. The very ideathat changing the design of a piece of cloth that flies on a flag pole is going to affect anyone's life, one way or another, is ridiculous. It is purely a media issue. I happened to be in Mississippi a few weeks before the vote, and there was no controversy "raging," as Northern newspapers like to state. Those in favor of the old flag, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, were planning a low-key campaign simply to let people know about the vote. The proponents of the new flag, who raised more than $600,000, were largely liberal politicians and preachers and Chamber of Commerce types. Their only lame argument was thata new flag would attract new industry to the state. That in itself was plainly absurd to anyone who has had any involvement in industrial development. Corporations look for tax breaks, cheap land and relatively cheap labor. I've never heard a company ask about a state flag. As for race relations, they seem to be as good in Mississippi as they are in most placesand better than in some, such as Cincinnati, for example. Southerners include blacks and whites and always have. The two races have certainly had their differences and conflicts, as they have everywhere else in the United States, but, in the words of a Southern writer,they have "always milled around together,"bound by their common love of the region, their Christian faith and common courtesy. In Georgia and South Carolina, politicians caved in to media pressure. In Georgia, they changed the flag, and, in South Carolina, they moved it from the state Capitol building to a Confederate monument nearby. In both cases, the politicians denied the people a vote on the question. If they had, I'm pretty confident the vote would have mirrored Mississippi's, where 65 percent voted for the old flag. Mississippi is exactly the same today as it was before the vote. If residents had voted for the new flag, it would have been exactly the same. Changing the designs on pieces of cloth does not change complex human relationships. Nor does it change the economic status of people. And certainly black folks are smart enough to know that, which is why there was no large black turnout at the polls. The Confederate flag, like reparations for slavery, is largely a media-generated controversy that most people don't care about. This is the 21st century, and although all Americans should study their history, our main attention must be focused on the present. There are no ex-slaves and no ex-slave owners. Nobody alive today owes anybody anything for something that happened to other people in another time. Nor can anybody alive today honestly say that their life is worse because some distant ancestor was a slave. The 1860 census, by the way, showed more than 3,500 black slave owners,and, of course, it was the Africans who enslaved their own people and sold them for rum and whatever. We are responsible for our own sins and our own actions, but not for those of anyone else --least of all for people who were long dead before we were born. We should not be surprised that con artists and trial lawyers will take a run at making money out of history.(Why not? They've tried every other conceivable ploy.) We should not pay them any attention, however. We have more important things to do. We Southerners often are faulted for our monuments and ceremonies honoring the Confederate dead,but the fact isthat folks everywhere should honor and remember their ancestors. We are their posterity. We live in a world that they helped shape. None of us can change the past nor bring it back even if we wanted to,which we don't. I like to read about ,b>the War Between the States, but I like to do so in the comfort of my air-conditioned living room. We cannot stop professional racists from stirring even imaginary pots as they try to keep their jobs,but we should remember that the road to better race relations lies where it always has:Looking at each other as human beings and not as representatives of groups or classes. Now ~ you race-baiters ~ stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Here's some more history.

Why many Blacks backed the CONFEDERATE FLAG by Emory Curtis May 08, 2001 The instant Mississippi voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure to wipe the Confederate emblem from their state flag, NAACP officials threatened to call a boycott of the state’s tourism industry in May. The minute they made their boycott threatI thought of the remark a good friend made to me a few years back during my visit to Atlanta. She was a well-educated, politically involved professional. While driving down one of the city’s thoroughfares, I noted Georgia’s state flag fluttering on street polls. The Confederate emblem was embedded in the flag. I asked whether Blacks were enraged by it. She laughed and casually said,"That’s their thing, let them have it, we’ve got bigger problems than a flag to deal with." During my stay in Atlanta, I asked several other Blacks whether they found the flag offensive. The answers were the same. To them, the Confederate flag was an empty symbol of a dead past. They felt that there were bigger problems for Blacks to be concerned about. Their sentiment seemed wildly at odds with the official stance of the NAACP and other civil rights leaders. They have turned the flag fight into a virtual holy crusade. They, and much of the press, swore thatthe Mississippi flag vote was a referendum on slavery and white supremacy. It was far from that. In March, an Associated Press poll found that nearly half of the state’s Blacks supported the flag or were undecided about changing it. The final vote confirmed that. In six majority Black counties, Blacks voted by the barest of margins to dump the old flag. But in three Mississippi Delta counties, with a heavy Black majority, the vote was to retain the flag. There are three compelling reasons why many Blacks back the Confederate flag or are indifferent to it. Antique Symbol. The Confederate flag was a non-issue for decades for most Southern Blacks until the 1950s,when Southern segregationists defiantly hoisted it on statehouses as a symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. NAACP officials, and other civil rights groups aimed their protests and legal campaigns at segregation, political disfranchisement and murderous racial violence,not the Confederate flag. The 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act broke the back of legal segregation, and enfranchised Blacks. The wave of federal and state racial hate crime laws in the 1970s gave state and federal authorities the legal weapons to crack down on racial hate terrorists. In Mississippi, prosecutors began exorcising the state’s murderous past by convicting and slapping a life sentence on white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in 1994 for the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Alabama authorities are trying to reconcile its deadly past by bringing to trial Thomas Blanton, Jr. for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that killed four Black girls. In other Southern states, prosecutors have gotten or are seeking convictions in 19 cases for the murder of Blacks or civil rights workers in the 1960s. Economic Pain. The NAACP claimed that its much publicized boycott of South Carolina last year to force state officials to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol building drained $100 million from the state’s tourist industry. But the boycott was a double-edged sword for some Blacks. Several presidents of historically Black colleges, Black politicians, food and service company owners and entertainment promoters privately complained that the boycott badly pinched their purse, and cost jobs for Blacks. In Mississippi, a similar boycott could be even worse for Blacks. The tourism industry bankrolls a major part of the state’s budget. It reduces the yearly tax bill by about $250 for all Mississippi residents. The gaming industry nets about $3.1 billion and provides 10 percent of the state’s budget. A hit against it would also increase taxes, and force job lay-offs. The state legislature and business groups have cut deals with car plants, hi-tech companies and manufacturing companies to relocate, or build new plants, in the state. These industries would create thousands of jobs and benefits for Blacks. A boycott could jeopardize those deals. Sideshow Issue. In 1999 Mississippi Blacks ranked at rock bottom in income in America and at, or near, the top in school dropout, infant mortality, and victim of violence rates in the nation. In the past decade, dozens of Mississippi Black farmers have had their farms foreclosed on by bankers and government agencies. The state’s historically Black colleges waged a twenty-six year titanic legal battle to force the state to equalize spending. Even if Mississippi state officials defied the popular vote and dumped the flag in a museum,it would be a pyrrhic victory. It would not save one Black farm, improve failing public schools, increase funds for Black colleges, create more jobs, or reduce poverty. The thousands of Mississippi Blacks that backed the old Confederate flag understood that. (Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of "The Disappearance of Black Leadership," is president of the National Alliance for Positive Action.)

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