Mississippi on the verge of relinquishing flag of slave states

Mississippi is the last American state whose flag still bears the colors of the slave states opposed to the North during the Civil War (1861-1865). Part of the state banner is occupied by the blue cross with 13 stars on a red background of the Confederate States, a racist symbol in the eyes of many Americans.

The mobilizations that followed the death of George Floyd revived the debate on the legacy of the Civil War and the elected officials of Mississippi voted, Saturday, June 27, by a very clear majority in favor of a new flag.

A strong majority in both chambers

The presence of this Confederate heritage in official symbols has been a subject of debate in Mississippi and, more broadly in the South, for decades. In 2001, Georgia had changed flag, but the voters of Mississippi had clearly opposed, that same year, to such initiative, on the occasion of a referendum – 64% for the status quo against 36%.

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Mississippi, where 38% of the population is African-American, is therefore the last state to wear the “rebel” colors. But the wave of mobilization linked to the death of George Floyd also affected the cities of the South and revived the debate on the statues of Southern generals and on Confederate symbols.

Many institutions (university, sports, economic, religious…) have called for turning the page, and the debate has won the Capitol in Jackson, capital of Mississippi. On Saturday June 27, the two chambers, although dominated by Republicans (36 elected out of 52 in the Senate; 74 out of 122 in the House of Representatives), adopted by a strong majority – more than 2/3 – a resolution calling for the development of a new flag.

Mississippi, a symbol of racism in the South in the 20th century

While no southern state has been spared from racism and violence in the past century, Mississippi remains associated with particularly grim tragedies. It was in this state that Emmett Till, a black teenager living in Chicago on vacation in the South, was brutally murdered in 1955.

A few years later, in 1963, Medgar Evers, figure of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), was assassinated outside his home in Jackson by a member of the Ku Klux Klan. This new drama will inspire Nina Simone “Mississippi Goddam”, a title she always sang with rage, which will become one of the hymns of the fight for civil rights.

This death will not be the only one. It is still in Mississippi that three student civil rights activists were killed in 1964. In 1988, the director Alan Parker will draw from this story the plot of his film “Mississippi Burning”.

A referendum next November

The resolution voted on Saturday is only the first step in this procedure. A law must now be debated, from this Sunday, June 28, in particular to appoint a commission responsible for designing the new flag. It is stipulated in the resolution that it cannot include the Confederate banner and that it must bear the official American motto “In God we trust”.

The current flag was adopted in 1894, “To signify opposition to civil rights and racial equality”, recalls the Mississippi Historial Society, which called for a change of flag.

The alternative project will then be submitted to voters by referendum, on the occasion of the presidential and legislative elections on November 3.

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