JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi voters soundly rejected their 126-year-old Confederate-themed flag for an updated replacement that features a magnolia and the phrase “In God We Trust.”
Voters on Tuesday approved of “The New Magnolia,” designed by artist Rocky Vaughan, with 68% of the vote, NBC News reported.
The new flag features the state flower with a dark blue background encircled by stars representing Mississippi as the 20th state. A slightly larger star represents Native American people who first lived on the land.
Mississippi was the last state in the union to feature a Confederate battle emblem in its flag. The rebel flag has been used by white supremacist groups and widely condemned as a racist symbol. Leaders retired the old flag in June as awareness of social justice issues swept the nation.
Mississippi’s Confederate-themed flag was adopted in 1894 when white supremacists dominated the legislature. It was approved at a time when Black people had gained power after Reconstruction. The flag was repealed in 1906 but kept in use. A majority of voters decided to keep the flag during a 2001 election. However, some cities and counties stopped flying it because of the Confederate imagery.
The issue of changing the flag, even in a state with significant Black population, seemed too volatile an issue for lawmakers to pursue. Until this summer. Nationally, protests swept the country after George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, was killed while in police custody. After pressure from business, education, religious and sports groups, including the Mississippi Baptist Convention and the Southeastern Conference, lawmakers put the issue on the ballot.
“That old flag to me represented a lot of rebelism, you know, the good old boys,” Taderell Lamont Roberts, who is Black, told The Associated Press. “It never bothered me. ... But it’s time for a different flag so our new generation can see that all that is in the past, and they don’t have to deal with that. We were brought up to just live with it. But I’m glad that now it’s time for a change.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Cox Media Group
