Mississippi senator wants old Confederate state flag back because ‘our people fought and died under that flag’

Voters chose new flag in 2020 ballot initiative

A Republican state senator wants Mississippi to re-adopt its old, Confederate-themed state flag, which it abandoned in 2020 after decades spent trying to change the design, a symbol critics said was an overt celebration of the state’s white supremacist past.

New Albany senator Kathy Chism was filmed at a June political rally telling audience members the state should reinstate its old banner, which was designed in 1894 and incorporated a Confederate cross, because “a lot of our people fought and died under that flag,” according to video obtained by the Mississippi Free Press.

Kathy Chism (Mississippi Senate)

Ms Chism, who opposed the 2020 effort to replace the flag via ballot initiative with a new design featuring the state’s iconic magnolia blossoms, also critcised Mississippi lieutenant governor Delbert Hosemann, a fellow Republican, for his role in the flag debate.

She accused him of sabotaging efforts to reinstate the state’s ballot initiative process, which the state supreme court struck down in 2021. In his role as lieutenant governor, Ms Hosemann also has a say over what legislation gets voted on in the state senate. Opponents of the “New Magnolia” flag hope to launch a ballot initiative to bring back the Confederate-themed design.

“The Senate leadership, Delbert Hosemann, refused to pass the House (ballot initiative restoration) bill because he honestly doesn’t want the people to be successful using the ballot initiative which was what we tried to use to save our flag,” Ms Chism said. “Only a Democrat at heart would entertain the thought of pulling such a stunt that Delbert Hosemann had control of.”

(Mr Hosemann has said he supports the ballot process in general, but was letting the legislature iron out differences over the issue.)

In November of 2020, voters chose to adopt a new flag design by a wide margin, two decades after a similar ballot initiative failed. The new flag, designed by artist Rocky Vaughan, features a magnolia blossom above the words “In God We Trust,” encircled with 20 stars representing Mississippi’s place as the 20th US state. A gold star above the blossom represents the land’s original Native tribes.

The South has been reassessing symbols of its Confederate past in recent years (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The design "represents Mississippi’s sense of hope and rebirth, as the Magnolia often blooms more than once and has a long blooming season," the Mississippi Department of Archives and History said in a statement at the time the referendum passed.

The vote replaced the state’s previous flag, which was implemented in 1894, following the Civil War and the end of Reconstruction.

Ms Chism, according to the Free Press, has falsely claimed the flag was designed by an “African American Confederate Solider.”

In fact, the banner, created at the same time Mississippi legislators were using Jim Crow laws to keep formerly enslaved Black people from all aspects of equal public life, is widely believed to have been designed by white supremacist lawmaker Edward Scudder.

In 1924, his daughter explained the attorney’s intentions designing the flag, as a tribute to the Confederacy, which seceded from the US in order to protect the institution of slavery.

“My father loved the memory of the valor and courage of those brave men who wore the gray … and has always taken keen interest in the reunions where he could meet and mingle with those of the Lost Cause,” Fayssoux Scudder Corneil said. “He told me that it was a simple matter for him to design the flag because he wanted to perpetuate in a legal and lasting way that dear battle flag under which so many of our people had so gloriously fought.”