JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Country rockers Steve Earle & The Dukes have released a new song exhorting Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.
The single, “It’s Time, Mississippi,” went on sale Friday as a fundraiser for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Virginia native Earle sings that he comes from a “long, long line / of a Rebel strain / but the wind has changed.”
Old South symbols have been widely debated since the June 17 massacre of nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The man charged in the slayings had previously posed for online photos, holding the Confederate battle flag.
Soon after the killings, the Confederate battle flag was removed from state Capitol grounds by lawmakers in South Carolina and by the governor in Alabama. But Mississippi continues to fly the state flag it has used since 1894, with the rebel emblem in one corner.