Mississippi Gov_ Tate Reeves signed a bill that gives the state a new flag with a magnolia and the phrase “In God, we trust”.
JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi hoisted a new state flag without the Confederate battle emblem on Monday, just over six months after lawmakers removed the last US state flag that included the divisive rebel symbol.
The new flag has a magnolia and the phrase “In God we trust”. Voters approved the bill in November, and Governor Tate Reeves on Monday signed a law to make it an official state symbol.
“A new chapter in our history begins today,” said one of the leaders in changing the flag, Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn, to more than 100 people who gathered in an almost icy climate to watch the new flag fly out of the State capitol.
Just before signing the law, Reeves said the old flag with the Confederate symbol was “an important obstacle to unity”.
“When many looked at our old flag, they saw only a symbol of the state and heritage they love. But many felt rejected, diminished and even hated because of this flag, ”said Reeves. “This is not a solid foundation for our state. So, today, we turn the page. “
The momentum to change the Mississippi flag grew rapidly in June, while protests against racial injustice were taking place across the country. Lawmakers created a commission to design a new flag, specifying that it could not include images of the Confederates and that it should include “In God We Trust”.
Reeves previously served as deputy governor and said for years that if the old flag changed, it should only be done by voting across the state. He signed the bill removing the old flag after lawmakers passed it by a veto-proof margin.
The public submitted more than 3,000 design proposals and the commission chose one that had a magnolia flower surrounded by white stars representing Mississippi as the 20th state, in addition to a single gold star representing Native Americans. The gold star is made from diamond shapes that are significant to the Choctaw culture. The flag also has golden stripes that represent the artistic heritage of the state that produced the great blues BB King and Nobel Prize-winning writer William Faulkner.
The law that removed the old flag also specified that the new flag proposed by the commission would go to the November 3 vote for a yes or no vote. The magnolia design was the only flag proposal in the vote, and more than 71% of people who voted that day said yes.
Reeves said Monday about the new flag: “It is a small effort to unify, but it is done in good faith.”
The emblem of the Confederate battle – a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars – was placed in the upper left corner of the Mississippi flag in 1894 by white supremacists in the state legislature a generation after the South lost the Civil War. The flag was part of the reaction against the political power that blacks achieved during Reconstruction. Critics have long said that the flag was a racist symbol that failed to represent a state with the highest percentage of black residents in the country.
The Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups have waved the Confederate flag for decades. Georgia placed the battle emblem prominently on its state flag in 1956, during a reaction to the civil rights movement, and that state removed the symbol from its flag in 2001.
Mississippi voters chose to keep the Confederate flag during the 2001 elections, but all public universities in the state and several cities and counties have stopped showing it in recent years. Several withdrew him after the June 2015 murder of nine black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The white man accused of the shooting deaths had previously posed, in photos posted online, holding the Confederate battle flag.
Former Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrove attended the signing of the bill on Monday and said of the new flag: “It has badges and a design that everyone can support.” Musgrove was in office during the 2001 elections and advocated the removal of the Confederate battle emblem. He lost his candidacy for re-election in 2003, when opponents put up posters with the slogan: “Keep the flag. Change the governor. “
Supporters of the Mississippi flag with the Confederate theme are starting an initiative that aims to place four flag designs on the state ballot for another vote – the 1894 flag, the magnolia flag, one designed by a Jackson artist as an alternative to the 1894 flag and one designed for the 2017 bicentenary of the state. Putting this on the ballot is a long shot, however, because of the signature collection process that is made more challenging by the coronavirus pandemic.
A few dozen people demonstrated on the steps south of the Mississippi Capitol in support of the revival of the old flag. Some also carried flags of support for President Donald Trump.
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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.