Two members of the Leflore County state delegation expressed differing opinions on whether the state Legislature should vote to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag.
A survey by the Clarion-Ledger newspaper of Jackson on Saturday listed state Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood, and state Rep. Bobby Howell, R-Kilmichael, among 106 legislators being unavailable for comment on the issue.
House Speaker Philip Gunn, a Republican, has called for the flag to be changed after a gunman, Dylann Roof, killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, last month.
A photograph of Roof, 21, holding a Confederate flag was found shortly after the shooting along with a racist manifesto.
Gunn has been joined in his call by U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran, both Republicans.
Jordan, who was active in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, said he favors changing the state flag. In fact, he held a rally at the state Capitol on Tuesday in support of changing the flag.
Jordan said he admired Gunn for his courage in bringing the issue up. He said he had heard from “so many” white Mississippians who have expressed support for changing the flag.
Jordan said the emblem is holding the state back.
“What most Mississippians want to see is progress. We’re stuck on the bottom. We’ve been there for a long time,” he said.
The state needs tourism, and the emblem reminds tourists of the state’s past of “rebelling against the United States,” he said.
More importantly, Jordan said, the flag in its current form is offensive to 1 million African-Americans residents of the state — one-third of the state’s population — “who are the great-great-grandsons and great-great-granddaughters of slaves.”
A state referendum in 2001, which overwhelmingly approved the current flag, should not stop the Legislature from revisiting the issue, Jordan said.
Howell, who is retiring at the end of this term, said the question about the flag is complicated and said he doesn’t think there is a “yes” or “no” answer. “A lot of people view that emblem as a symbol of their heritage, while others see it as divisive,” he said.
Howell said the fight over the flag will likely be a slippery slope toward erasing other Confederate symbols, including courthouse statues such as the one located at the Leflore County Courthouse.
“There seems to be no stopping where we take these issues,” he said.
Howell said he represents his constituents, and “when they voted on the referendum, they voted for the flag overwhelmingly.”
Howell said the Legislature should be working on issues that are important to its constituents.
Multiple attempts to get comments from state Rep. Linda Whittington, D-Schlater; state Rep. Kevin Horan, D-Grenada; and state Sen. Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona, were not successful.
The Clarion-Ledger reported Saturday that each of the 106 legislators who had not publicly taken a position on the flag received multiple emails and phone calls.
Jordan said the paper likely missed him because he was on the Gulf Coast on Friday.
•Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
