2015/07/09 –

JACKSON – The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP commends the South Carolina Legislature on their decision to remove the Confederate battle flag from its Capitol grounds. It is not appropriate public policy to fly or display images of racial hatred and exclusion as official state symbols.  South Carolina’s political leadership has set a clear example. An example that challenges all to a higher level of humanity, urging the nation to rise above a divisive symbol of a bloodstained past.  We now call on Governor Phil Bryant to follow South Carolina’s lead and remove the Confederate battle symbol from the Mississippi State Flag.

“We appeal to Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant to recognize the moral urgency for Mississippi to move without delay towards our next phase of progression,” said Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson. “It’s time to write the next chapter of our history”.

The Mississippi NAACP is encouraged by our United States Senators, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, and Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, who have all displayed tremendous fortitude in breaking the cycle of clinging to a contentious era by calling for the removal of the Confederate symbol from our state’s flag. “The NAACP asks our governor and legislature to rid our state of sanctioning a flag which some revere as heritage and others revile as hatred, in favor of establishing a new legacy for Mississippi which can be embraced by all.  We are asking the Governor to display the same moral courage and leadership as leaders in South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi U.S. Senators, and House Speaker in removing the Confederate flag,” says Johnson.

Those who choose to honor this Civil War battle symbol as their heritage can continue to do so personally, but should not expect our state government to continue to inflict its humiliation and degradation of citizens who neither identify with nor have an attachment to it.  It is unfortunate that more blood had to be shed through lives lost, including a South Carolina lawmaker, in the sacredness of a church, before we have a conscious awakening. The church massacre in South Carolina is nothing new to Mississippi. Unfortunately, Mississippi, more than any other state, already has a past entrenched in violence, bombings, beatings, hangings and other vicious murders at the hands of those who shroud themselves in their “honor and loyalty” to a Confederate battle flag.

Johnson states: “Nothing could ever right the wrongs of yesterday, but we can chart a better course for tomorrow and the next generation of Mississippians as we show the world that we are no longer mired to a tradition of intolerance.”