Calls to change the Mississippi state flag – which prominently features the battle emblem of the Confederate States of America – have surged in recent weeks as protesters across the nation demand justice following the murder of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
The May 25 incident has sparked a national conversation about race, and a large group gathered in Jackson over the weekend demanding the removal of the flag, which is viewed as a symbol of hatred and white supremacy.
The Mississippi Legislature adopted the flag in February 1894, roughly 20 years after the end of Reconstruction and nearly 30 years following the end of the Civil War. White lawmakers regained political control of the state through a new 1890 Constitution that effectively stripped black voters and poor white voters of their rights. This constitution replaced an 1868 Constitution that allowed black Mississippians to hold political office and exercise – for the first time – political authority.
Many of those lawmakers were direct descendants of Confederate soldiers, and they used their regained political power to honor the Confederacy through symbols like the flag and monuments to Confederate leaders such as Robert E. Lee. In 1906, lawmakers pushed for the creation of a new county in the Pine Belt named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest County is the county seat of Hattiesburg, the fourth-largest city in the state.
The flag has been a source of controversy for years, and, in 2001, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove appointed an independent commission to develop a new design. The proposed flag developed by the commission was put before voters in a referendum on April 17, 2001. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal in favor of the 1894 flag. In 2003, Georgia adopted a new state flag, and the Mississippi flag was left as the only state flag in the United States to feature the emblem.
The referendum was 19 years ago, and popular support for another vote seems to be mounting. One online petition has more than 133,000 signatures, and a Petal woman recently started a petition for descendants of Confederate soldiers who want to change the flag. Signers to that petition must be Mississippians and have a valid Confederate ancestor, and the organizer, Lisa Foster, is researching each potential signature. The petition, posted online on Sunday, had about 20 signatures as of Monday.
All eight of the state’s public universities have removed the state flag from their campuses, and that decision has caused controversy for the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. A group of protesters wanting the flag reinstated on the campus can be seen in front of the university’s main entrance on Hardy Street on most Sunday afternoons. The protesters sit in lawn chairs and clutch the 1894 flag, which is considered by the NAACP to be a symbol of racial hate.
On Tuesday, State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican who represents Jackson County on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, said he believes another vote should be held. He posted an online poll asking voters if Mississippi should adopt the popular Stennis flag as the official state flag, and respondents voted 76 percent in favor of the idea.
The Stennis flag is perhaps the most visible flag replacement option. It was designed by Laurin Stennis, a Mississippi artist and granddaughter of U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis, who represented Mississippi as a Democrat for more than 40 years. Stennis said her design offers “a positive symbol for all citizens.”
Wiggins said the opinions of an entire generation of Mississippians, the millennials, have not been considered in the ongoing flag debate. He added that many members of the “older generation” have also changed their minds on the flag.
Lawmakers have the authority to change the flag, and many bills have been introduced in the Legislature to do so or to prompt another referendum. However, these bills die in committee and never make it to the floor for a full vote in either house. Republicans overwhelmingly control both houses of the Legislature, and members toe the party line that is led by House Speaker Phillip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who is president of the State Senate.
Gunn has said the current flag is a “point of offense that needs to be removed.” The speaker has said in the past he prefers to put the matter “to a vote of the people,” but he is “wary” that such a vote will fail to prompt any change.
Mississippi Today reported Tuesday that a bipartisan group of lawmakers began “whipping votes and drafting a resolution Monday to change the state flag” with the support of Gunn.
During his 2019 campaign, Hosemann said “...if this flag issue makes its way through the committee process next year, there will be a vote in the Senate.”
Gov. Tate Reeves said in his 2019 campaign that “the people of Mississippi overwhelmingly voted to keep our flag in 2001.” He added that he opposes “unilateral action by the governor or the Legislature or any other backroom deal by politicians in Jackson to change it. If Mississippians ever decide we should change our flag, and at some point they might, it should only be done by a vote of the people.”
During a press conference on Monday in Jackson, Reeves doubled down on his position, saying his stance “has not changed.”
To prompt a statewide vote, Mississippi residents could register a ballot initiative with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. Initiatives are valid for one year, and they require a minimum of 106,190 certified signatures, including at least 21,238 certified signatures from each of the five congressional districts. The signatures must be verified by county circuit clerks, and it costs $500 to file the petition.
The initiative must receive “a majority of the total votes cast for that particular initiative” and “must also receive more than 40 percent of the total votes cast in that election” in order to pass, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
