It was most recently back in the headlines when Dylann Roof, the suspect accused of gunning down nine people in a South Carolina church in June (15), was pictured posing with the Confederate flag, and now a host of celebrities want Mississippi officials to wipe the symbol from the official state emblem.
Advertisement
For these reasons, Delta State University supports making a change to a symbol, such as Mississippi’s state flag, that promotes divisiveness and serves as a barrier to understanding. The Gulf Coast Business Council and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce have both endorsed removing the Confederate emblem from the flag. “The NCAA has advised that “…the Confederate flag is a symbol of oppression to many of our players, fans and coaches.
Others who signed the letter include Netscape chief executive officer Jim Barksdale, music legend Jimmy Buffett, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, Basketball Hall of Famer Bailey Howell, former Gov. William Winter, and baseball legend Dave “Boo” Ferriss.
Erik Fleming, a former member of the Mississippi Legislature and a director of the Mississippi Onward PAC, said, “Our goal is to change the Mississippi Flag, a goal that was deterred fourteen years ago, but now has come before us again”. It was taken down last month. “The confederate flag is no longer a viable state or national symbol in 2015”. “The flag is a turnoff”. In 2001, a referendum to change the flag’s design was put in front of voters, who opted in a landslide to keep the current styling.
But Greg Stewart, administrator of Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, said Saturday that use of the Confederate battle flag by rap and hip-hop artists “kind of sucks the wind out of the “offensive” argument”.
Among those who also signed it were Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, a novel about African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi.
Advertisement
‘Think of America in 1931 and then in 1945 – that’s 14 years, and a tectonic shift in national identity. “Think of 1961 and 1975”, he told the newspaper.
