A Mississippi flag change may be in order after prominent natives, including quarterback Archie Manning and singer Jimmy Buffett,
endorsed a full-page ad in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger Monday calling for the removal of the Confederate emblem from the banner.
The current Mississippi flag design features the Confederate battle flag in its upper left corner.
"It's simply not fair, or honorable, to ask black Mississippians to attend schools, compete in athletic events, work in the public sector, serve in the National Guard, and go about their normal lives with a state flag that glorifies a war fought to keep their own
ancestors enslaved," the ad reads, according to Time magazine.
Others who signed their support of a Mississippi state flag change in the Clarion-Ledger letter include actor Morgan Freeman, author John Grisham, "The Help" author Kathryn Stockett, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, Grammy-winning producer Glen Ballard, Basketball Hall of Famer Bailey Howell, former Gov. William Winter, baseball legend Boo Ferriss, and many others, according to the newspaper.
USA Today's "For The Win" sports blog pointed out that University of Mississippi football coach Hugh Freeze and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen also signed the letter asking for the removal of the Confederate emblem.
"I'm a Mississippian. No one understands the pride of the people and the heritage of that state any better than I do," Freeze said earlier this year. "While I'm not a political figure, that symbol [the Confederate flag] has been hijacked by groups that have meant ill will toward other people. I think it's time we move in a different direction with the state flag."
Supporters of the Confederate flag emblem on the Mississippi state flag appeared to be unmoved by the ad, according to the Clarion-Ledger, which pointed to a statewide vote in 2001 that decided to keep the flag.
"Rap and hip-hop artists use the [Confederate battle] flag so that kind of sucks the wind out of the 'offensive' argument," Greg Stewart, administrator of Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, told the Clarion-Ledger.
The issue surrounding the Confederate flag was renewed in some states when Dylann Roof entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, June 17 and killed the state senator and Rev. Clementa Pinckney and eight other members.
Photos of Roof posing with the Confederate flag riled citizens and helped spur the South Carolina state legislature to remove the banner from state grounds in Columbia.
Related Stories: