Lobbying grows against Mississippi's rebel-themed flag

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In this April 25, 2020 photograph, a small Mississippi state flag is held by a participant during a drive-by “re-open Mississippi” protest past the Governor’s Mansion, in the background, in Jackson, Miss. This current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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CORRECTS SPELLING OF NAME TO ISIAC NOT ISAAC General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi president Rev. Isiac Jackson calls for a change in the Mississippi state flag, Thursday, June 25, 2020, during a news conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. A large number of Black pastors lobbied their legislators, calling on them to strike the current flag. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi State women’s basketball coach, Nikki McCray-Penson, joins other athletic staffs from the state’s public universities calling for a change in the Mississippi state flag, during a joint news conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, June 25,2020. Several head coaches met with both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn in addition to their lawmakers, to lobby for the change by their respective bodies. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi basketball coach, Kermit Davis, center, joins other athletic staff from the state’s public universities calling for a change in the Mississippi state flag, during a joint news conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, June 25,2020. Several head coaches met with both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn in addition to their lawmakers, to lobby for the change by their respective bodies. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi football coach Lane Kiffin stands with other public universities coaches and athletic staffs in calling for a change of the Mississippi state flag, Thursday, June 25, 2020 at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. Several head coaches met with both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn in addition to their lawmakers to lobby for a change. This current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Republican Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, joins the athletic department staff of the state’s public universities in calling for a change of the Mississippi state flag, Thursday, June 25, 2020, at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. Several head coaches met with both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn in addition to their lawmakers to lobby for a change. This current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi State basketball coach Ben Howland, left, and football coach Mike Leach, center, walk past the Mississippi state flag, at right, on their way to the governor’s office at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, June 25, 2020. Head sports coaches from Mississippi State and the state’s other public universities met with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other lawmakers to call for the removal of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag from the design of the Mississippi state flag. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach, right, confers with Mississippi Valley State assistant head football coach Willie Totten, left, and Delta State football coach Todd Cooley, center, at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, June 25, 2020, after joining other athletic coaches and their staffs from the state’s public universities in a news conference calling for a change in the Mississippi state flag. Several head coaches met with both the lieutenant governor and Speaker Philip Gunn in addition to their lawmakers, to lobby for the change by their respective bodies. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Rev. Kenneth M. Davis, president of the Mississippi National Baptist Convention, calls for a change in the Mississippi state flag, Thursday, June 25, 2020, during a news conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. A large number of Black pastors lobbied their legislators, calling on them to strike the current flag. This current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Rev. C.J. Rhodes, pastor of Mt. Helm Baptist Church, makes an impassioned plea for a change in the Mississippi state flag, Thursday, June 25, 2020, during a news conference at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. A large number of Black pastors lobbied their legislators, calling on them to strike the current flag. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

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Rep. Ed Blackmon, D-Canton, points to a Mississippi state flag on an upper floor of the Capitol and calls for it to be brought down and replaced, Thursday, June 25, 2020, during a news conference with a large number of Black pastors at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss. The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — University coaches and Christian ministers filled the Mississippi Capitol on Thursday, urging legislators to seize the moment and remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag while Americans are reckoning with difficult discussions about race and history.

“It doesn’t take courage. It takes conscience,” said the Rev. Reginald M. Buckley, senior pastor of Jackson’s Cade Chapel Missionary Baptist Church.

Mississippi is the last state with a flag that includes the emblem that many see as racist.

Confederate monuments and other symbols are being removed in parts of the U.S. amid widespread protests over racial injustice after the videotaped killings of Black people, sometimes by police.

Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Thursday advocated a state flag design that would eliminate the Confederate battle emblem — a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars.

“I was proud as Governor to add ‘In God We Trust’ to the State Seal,” Republican Bryant wrote on Twitter. “It will make a great Mississippi State Flag.”

Bryant left office in January after eight years as governor and four before that as lieutenant governor, and he never pushed the politically volatile issue of changing the flag during his time in office.

White supremacists in the Mississippi Legislature put the Confederate emblem on the upper left corner of state flag in 1894, during backlash to the political power that African Americans gained after the Civil War.

Mississippi voters chose to keep the flag in a 2001 statewide election, but the design has remained contentious.

The state’s annual legislative session is almost over, and it takes a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate to consider a bill after the normal deadlines have passed. Legislative leaders continued working Thursday to build a bipartisan coalition to reach that margin to bring a flag bill up for debate in the next few days.

Current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said Wednesday, for the first time, that “a veto would be pointless” if legislators attain a two-thirds majority. That’s same margin needed to overturn a veto. Reeves said, though, that he prefers having a statewide election to let voters choose a flag design.

Legislative Black Caucus members say lawmakers should tackle the issue because another statewide flag vote would be divisive.

Republican state Sen. Melanie Sojourner of Natchez said she wants to keep the flag. Like Reeves, she said she thinks people should vote on the issue.

“So many people when I talk to them, I ask them what do they find offensive? And I certainly realize some people do,” Sojourner said. “They always go back to, ‘Well, it’s racist’ because of the way it was used in the 1960s. Well, the Klan used the Stars and Stripes more than it used the battle flag. It used the Christian cross. I mean, they use other symbols. So, where do we draw the line?”

The NCAA said last week that it is expanding a policy that bans states with prominent Confederate symbols from hosting its sponsored events. The announcement came a day after the Southeastern Conference made a similar declaration aimed at the Mississippi state flag. The current NCAA ban, in place since 2001, applies to what the NCAA calls predetermined sites, such as for basketball tournament games.

“We can’t be an elite program without hosting postseason events,” said Nikki McCray-Penson, who was hired this year as the Mississippi State University women’s basketball coach.

Speaking Thursday at the Capitol, McCray-Penson said the Confederate emblem is “a symbol of hatred.”

“As a Black woman coaching at one of the most diverse universities in the country, I look forward to seeing change that unites us and accurately represents our great community,” she said.

The pastor Buckley said that although many people have wanted to change Mississippi’s flag for years, support for doing so has grown in recent weeks. International protests have focused on the police killings of African Americans George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and the killing of another Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, in an encounter with white men while he was out running in a coastal Georgia neighborhood.

Speaking to Mississippi legislators facing a decision about the flag, Buckley said: “You’ve been given the right crisis needed to do this. America has been reminded again of the infectious sin of racism and how it corrodes the human spirit and corrupts human interactions.”

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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

Lobbying grows against Mississippi’s rebel-themed flag

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