Tempers flare, history challenged in raucous USM flag debate

If you were looking for a safe space — one free of discriminatory language — USM’s campus was not the place to be Thursday night.

The University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Park campus and Mississippi Humanities Council co-sponsored a panel discussion on future of the state’s flag — the only one remaining in the nation to carry a Confederate symbol.

There were speakers on both sides of the issue, but one side in particular brought audience members to disrupt the mostly civil gathering with shouting and finger-pointing. Some people even got up and walked out.

Long Beach police stood as sentries in the back of the room, but their direct assistance wasn’t needed.

The passionate discussion demonstrated a clash of ideologies, with both those lobbying to keep the flag and those seeking to update it disagreeing on the history of the flag and its meaning.

A divisive symbol

Lea Campbell spoke first as the president of the Mississippi Rising Coalition, which has taken a public position against the flag.

“We are a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational and multi-gender grassroots coalition of citizens and allied organizations,” she said.

She said the flag’s divisive symbolism hasn’t changed since the Confederate battle emblem was incorporated into the design in 1894.

“We understand that symbols matter,” she said. “Our flag is a symbol. It tells the world what we stand for. It was created explicitly to maintain the ideology and the political system of white supremacy.

“It’s in direct conflict with democracy and it has been used by white supremacist organizations to persecute not just blacks, but the LGBT community and other minorities.”

Disputed history

Marc Allen, public affairs director of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, spoke next and requested the audience “do their own research” when it comes to established history.

“It’s not a Confederate flag,” he said.“It’s a battle flag. It has been misused. It doesn’t mean we need to get rid of it.

“The U.S. flag, the Christian cross, the Bible has been misused. Does that mean we get rid of those?”

Allen added, “I love Mississippi. If you don’t like Mississippi, maybe you can leave.”

The next panelist, Rev. Patrick Sanders, an Episcopal priest, said his church came out in opposition to the flag out of an interest in “reconciliation and unity.”

Symbols change meanings, Sanders said.

“As you probably know, symbols are vital in the religious world and in the rest of society,” he said. “But symbols aren’t eternal and changeless because we aren’t eternal and changeless. The symbol of our flag is profoundly something different now than what it may have been.”

Old issue revisited

David Holt, USM Faculty Senate president, talked about the flag’s history and explained the university’s decision to take the flag down on campus.

He recalled Dylann Roof’s 2015 killing of nine black parishioners in South Carolina had sparked a national conversation about Confederate symbols, noting South Carolina decided to put its flag, which displayed a Confederate symbol, into a museum rather than fly it above every courthouse, school and government building.

Holt said the NCAA issued a policy last year that banned the awarding of championship sites to any arena or stadium in South Carolina and Mississippi, because at the time, both states flew flags with Confederate symbols.

At the time, Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn said “the flag must be removed,” but Gov. Phil Bryant said the issue was up to Mississippians, who had voted in 2001 in a statewide referendum to keep the flag.

Since then, several bills in the House and Senate have revisited the flag issue. One even recommended stripping accreditation from K-12 schools that didn’t display it prominently outside their schools.

‘Some derogatory things’

Despite conflicting opinions, Thursday’s gathering remained civil until the fifth panelist. Ray Shores, president of the Dixie Alliance, which supports the flag, forewarned:

“I’m going to say some derogatory things.”

Shores likened flag critics to foot soldiers in a war. “It’s an agitprop (propaganda) campaign against the state flag because the Left’s attack is part of a broader, ongoing war — a culture war and a war of ideas. Many are misguided people and compromisers who have linked arms with the left to attack our flag.”

“Some are paid to turn violent,” he said, adding flag-opposition funding comes from the Communist Party, Hollywood, tax-exempt organizations and George Soros.

“You’re a neo-Nazi!” interrupted audience member Roger Mills, though Shores continued.

“That’s the kind of thing right there that the Left has created, all of the falsehoods ...” Shores responded, claiming Nazis were left-wing activists. “Do you think that the promoters of these anti-Christ ideas is why Mississippi flies its flags on its front porches?”

Shores’ statements prompted yells from the audience, some of whom walked out.

James Crowell, given the speaking slot after Shores, used Michelle Obama’s famous quotation: “When they go low, we go high,” to which the crowd applauded.

“If you change the flag, opinion will change about Mississippi,” Crowell said.

I don’t want it

The panel included some eloquent speaking moments from panelists and listeners alike. One audience member shared her personal history growing up black in Mississippi. Explaining what the flag means to her personally, she reminded the audience it’s not a First Amendment issue.

“If you support the flag you can wear in on your clothing, you can fly it from your car or home. You can do that. For me, and many others, it represents a different history.”

She said the flag is a symbol of lynchings; of Jim Crow laws that kept black Americans from voting; of a time and a history the state should not have represented by a flag waving above our heads, above our courthouses and schools, she said.

This story was originally published February 11, 2017 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Tempers flare, history challenged in raucous USM flag debate."