JACKSON, Miss. – 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, but rally leaders said the flag is racially divisive. Three men holding large flags with various Confederate emblems watched the rally from a distance across the Capitol lawn.
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, South Carolina, has renewed debate about the public display of Confederate symbols.
Police said the mass shooting in Charleston was racially motivated, and the suspect had previously posed for photos with the rebel flag.
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.