As Symbols of the Confederacy Fall, Activists Say Mississippi’s Flag Should Be Next – By Rick Rojas (New York Times) / June 21 2020
ATLANTA — Five years ago, in the wake of the horrific massacre of Black parishioners by a white supremacist at a South Carolina church, the University of Mississippi lowered the state flag for the last time on campus as Confederate symbols were being brought down across the South.
The chancellor then said the state’s emblem, the nation’s only state flag featuring the Confederate battle flag, failed to align with “our core values, such as civility and respect for others.” All eight of Mississippi’s public universities also stopped flying the flag, joined by cities across the state, including Grenada, Magnolia, Starkville, Clarksdale and Yazoo City. Jackson, the state capital, also decided not to fly it on city property.
In the long, passionate debate across the South over rooting out Confederate symbols, Mississippi’s flag remains one of the most conspicuous holdouts — with the battle flag of the Confederacy vividly embedded at the heart of the state flag. And for decades, many in the state have resisted recurring efforts to change it, seeing in the flag a proud reminder of their ancestors’ bloodshed in fighting for Mississippi.
Now as Confederate monuments and symbols are being furiously toppled yet again, the debate over the Mississippi flag has been reinvigorated. Supporters of removing the battle flag, once and for all, say the national ferment set off by the death of George Floyd has provided a level of momentum they have not had before.
“This is the time we’re going to get this done,” said the Rev. Darren Leach, the senior pastor at Genesis Church, a nondenominational congregation in Columbus, Mississippi, near the Alabama state line. “It’s a good chance for the good people of Mississippi to just do what they know they should do: Get us out from under this blight. The flag is a blight.”
The pressure has ratcheted up in recent weeks as forces outside Mississippi have denounced the flag.
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