Divisive across the state: Public rallies against Confederate Miss. flag
US News
Divisive across the state: Public rallies against Confederate Miss. flag
Civil-rights leader Myrlie Evers-Williams, Mississippi-born rapper David Banner and a prominent South Carolina lawmaker are calling on Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle emblem from its state flag. About 400 people took part in a change-the-flag rally Sunday outside the Mississippi Capitol. No alternative design was proposed. Republican state Rep. Jenny Horne of South Carolina said Sunday that Mississippi is hurting its own economy by keeping the battle emblem on the state flag.
It is a new South. The economic development opportunities that Mississippi is missing out on — you don’t even know it, but it’s costing all citizens jobs.
Republican state Rep. Jenny Horne
The emblem — a blue X with 13 white stars, over a red field — has been on Mississippi’s flag since 1894, and voters chose to keep it in 2001. But the massacre of nine black worshippers in June at a church in Charleston, S.C., has renewed the debate. Critics say the Mississippi flag is a divisive reminder of slavery and segregation, and doesn’t represent a state that has 2.9 million people, of which 38 percent are black. Supporters say they see the Confederate emblem as a symbol of history and heritage.
