JACKSON, MISS– The recent shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina has led to lawmakers there saying it’s time to bring down the confederate flag. Now your state lawmakers say what they think about removing the confederate bars from the Mississippi flag.
Senator Chris McDaniel says “I love all Mississippians, regardless of race or political affiliation. We are a family. But I disagree with those who use political correctness to silence differing viewpoints. I likewise believe it is in poor taste to use the tragic South Carolina massacre to promote a political agenda.”
Speaker of the House Philip Gunn released a statement yesterday, saying it was time for a conversation about the state’s flag. Since then, Lt. Governor Tate Reeves has said that Mississippians voted 14 years ago to keep the flag, and that the flag is a choice of the people it represents.
News Mississippi spoke with Senator Kenneth Wayne Jones, who also serves as the head of the Mississippi Black Caucus.
“We visited this conversation in 2001,” says Jones, “but in light of recent events, that conversation has changed.”
Jones says this needs to be a bipartisan conversation.
“We just want what’s best for everybody,” says Jones, “we’re not trying to cause stress to anybody. We’re just asking for a sympathetic voice on both sides.”
Jones also marks that Mississippi and South Carolina were two of the first to secede from the Union during the Civil War.
“And it looks like Mississippi and South Carolina will be the last to drop the flag,” says Jones.
Here’s all that Senator Jones has to say about the discussion that has now been started about the state’s flag:
