Mississippi officially drops Confederate-themed flag

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p>Mississippi has officially retired the last state flag in the US with the Confederate battle emblem&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Republican governor Tate Reeves signed the historic bill on Tuesday at the Governor’s Mansion&comma; immediately removing official status for the 126-year-old banner that has been a source of division for generations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This is not a political moment to me but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come together&comma; to be reconciled and to move on&comma;” Mr Reeves said just before the signing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are a resilient people defined by our hospitality&period; We are a people of great faith&period; Now&comma; more than ever&comma; we must lean on that faith&comma; put our divisions behind us&comma; and unite for a greater good&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mississippi has faced increasing pressure to change its flag since protests against racial injustice have focused attention on Confederate symbols in recent weeks&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A broad coalition of legislators on Sunday passed the landmark legislation to change the flag&comma; capping a weekend of emotional debate and decades of effort by black lawmakers and others who see the rebel emblem as a symbol of hatred&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Among the small group of dignitaries witnessing the bill signing were Reuben Anderson&comma; who was the first African American justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court&comma; serving from 1985 to 1991&semi; Willie Simmons&comma; a current state Transportation Commissioner who is the first African American elected to that job&semi; and Reena Evers-Everette&comma; daughter of civil rights icons Medgar and Myrlie Evers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Medgar Evers&comma; a Mississippi leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People &lpar;NAACP&rpar;&comma; was assassinated in the family’s driveway in 1963&period; Myrlie Evers was national chairwoman of the NAACP in the mid-1990s and is still living&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;That Confederate symbol is not who Mississippi is now&period; It’s not what it was in 1894&comma; either&comma; inclusive of all Mississippians&comma;” Ms Evers-Everette said after the ceremony&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;But now we’re going to a place of total inclusion and unity with our hearts along with our thoughts and in our actions&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Confederate battle emblem has a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>White supremacist legislators put it on the upper-left corner of the Mississippi flag in 1894&comma; as white people were squelching political power that African Americans had gained after the Civil War&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Critics have said for generations that it is wrong for a state where 38&percnt; of the people are black to have a flag marked by the Confederacy&comma; particularly since the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups have used the symbol to promote racist agendas&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mississippi voters chose to keep the flag in a 2001 statewide election&comma; with supporters saying they saw it as a symbol of Southern heritage&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But since then&comma; a growing number of cities and all the state’s public universities have abandoned it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>After a white gunman who had posed with the Confederate flag killed Black worshippers at a South Carolina church in 2015&comma; Mississippi’s Republican speaker of the House&comma; Philip Gunn&comma; said his religious faith compelled him to say that Mississippi must purge the symbol from its flag&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The issue was still broadly considered too volatile for legislators to touch&comma; until the police custody death of an African American man in Minneapolis&comma; George Floyd&comma; set off weeks of sustained protests against racial injustice&comma; followed by calls to take down Confederate symbols&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A groundswell of young activists&comma; college athletes and leaders from business&comma; religion&comma; education and sports called on Mississippi to make this change&comma; finally providing the momentum for legislators to vote&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; a commission will design a new flag that cannot include the Confederate symbol and must have the words &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;In God We Trust”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Voters will be asked to approve it in the November 3 election&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If they reject it&comma; the commission will draft a different design using the same guidelines&comma; to be sent to voters later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed11e2f358a">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; 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