The Militant - April 30, 2001 -- Vote planned on Confederate flag in Mississippi

Vol.65/No.17 April 30, 2001

Vote planned on Confederate flag in Mississippi

BY SUSAN LAMONT
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama--A statewide referendum will be held in Mississippi April 17 to decide whether or not to replace the current state flag, adopted in 1894 with its Confederate emblem, with a new design. The state legislature called the referendum in January, after a gubernatorial commission on the state flag came up with the new design. The revised flag would replace the Confederate "stars and bars" battle flag in the upper left hand corner with a field of 20 stars.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger has made much of several polls showing that a majority support keeping the old flag, some 66 percent. Among Black residents polled, however, a majority say they favor the change. J.D. Jones, an 80-year-old retiree who lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, told the Clarion-Ledger that he wants the current flag changed because it reminds him of the flag the Ku Klux Klan once waved on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. "It symbolizes hatred to me, especially the way I was treated," he said. Jones fought in Europe during World War II and returned home to Mississippi to confront racism all over again. "That made me so mad," he said. "If I'd been God, I would have burned the world up. I hope that's all behind us now."

James White, a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 303L from Natchez, Mississippi, told the Militant that he favors a change in the flag and believes many other workers, especially Black workers, feel that way too. "That flag represents slavery and oppression against Blacks," he explained. "It should be changed." White and other USWA Local 303L members have been on strike for more than two years at Titan Tire's Natchez plant. White was pleased to report that their local recently quit flying the old state flag above their union hall.

The NAACP, Black members of the state legislature, and other Black rights groups have been waging a low-key "get out the vote" campaign in favor of the new flag. On the other hand, various Confederate "heritage" groups and other right-wing outfits have been urging a vote against the new flag.

Anxious to promote Mississippi as an attractive investment site, a number of state government officials, along with business and banking groups, have come out in favor of the new flag. "The choice is between an old flag that shows a state interested in attracting new business and new ideas, or an old flag that shows a state resistant to change," argued the editors of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger April 8.

At the present time, Mississippi is the only state where the Confederate battle emblem remains the centerpiece of the state flag.

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