Another Over-Reaction
I have to champion Mississippi Governor Bryant for standing up to the politically correct. He never waivers in honoring the state’s Confederate veterans. With Memorial Day just behind us, it is imperative that we honor and cherish these ancestors. What everyone seems to forget is that it was a different time back then, with a different political climate and different viewpoints. Maybe we don’t agree with them now, but they were completely acceptable and widespread back then. The Confederate flag, to many, was a sign of independence from an oppressive national government, not a symbol of racism. It’s sad how things like the CSA flag have become misconstrued and misunderstood over the years. I hope Mississippi doesn’t cave like so many other southern states have in regard to their flag. But the pressure’s on, as this article demonstrates.
MISSISSIPPI FLAG ORDERED OUT OF PARK NEAR STATUE OF LIBERTY
By MIKE CATALINI
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ordered that the Mississippi flag, which carries a Confederate emblem, be replaced by the American flag at a state park that overlooks the Statue of Liberty.
Murphy ordered the removal of Mississippi’s flag from a display of each state’s flag at Liberty State Park, a preserve of more than 1,200 acres in Jersey City that overlooks Ellis Island and Lady Liberty.
On Friday, April 26, 2019, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ordered the Mississippi flag removed from a display of each state’s flag at Liberty State Park and replaced by the American flag because it has a Confederate emblem on it. Liberty State Park is on the Hudson River and overlooks the Statue of Liberty.
Murphy is a first-term Democrat and a self-styled progressive who regularly cited the Emma Lazarus poem at the statue’s base that invites immigrants to America.
New Jersey, he said, is rooted in diversity, and the flag doesn’t fit.
“The Confederate symbol displayed on the Mississippi state flag is reprehensible and does not reflect our values of inclusivity and equality,” he said in a statement.
The Mississippi flag includes the Confederate battle emblem in the upper left corner. The emblem has a red field topped by a blue X, dotted with 13 white stars. It has appeared on Mississippi’s flag since 1894.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, said in a statement: “I’m disappointed in Gov. Murphy’s actions. As I have repeatedly said, the voters of Mississippi should decide what the state flag is or is not.”
Confederate symbols have been widely debated across the South, particularly since June 2015, when a white supremacist killed nine black worshippers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as in 2017, when violence erupted as white nationalists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Murphy said he made the decision after Democratic State Sen. Sandra Cunningham raised the issue with him.
Cunningham said in a statement that the flag symbolized “an era of hate, violence, and division.”
Mississippians who voted in a 2001 statewide election chose to keep the flag.
But several Mississippi cities and counties and all eight of the state’s public universities have stopped flying it in recent years amid criticism that the battle emblem is a racist reminder of slavery and segregation. Supporters of the flag say it represents history.
Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.
https://apnews.com/d122588876db42cd944a 570028073914
(Article courtesy of The Southern Comfort, Private Samuel A. Hughey Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp #1452, Hernando, MS, Volume 42, Issue 5, May 2019 ed.)
