Mississippi lawmakers voted on Sunday to bring down, once and for all, the state flag dominated by the Confederate battle emblem that has flown for 126 years, adding a punctuation point to years of efforts to take down Confederate symbols across the South.
The flag, the only state banner left in the country with overt Confederate imagery, served for many as an inescapable symbol of Mississippi’s racial scars and of the consequences of that racial history in defining perceptions of the state.
The votes were 91-23 in the House and 37-14 in the Senate.
The best-case scenario for Trump's time in office was always that he represented the last gasp of white power, neo-Confederate politics, and that his crudeness and failures would end up discrediting that whole side of American political life.
This act gives me hope that something like that is coming to pass.
I was watching an MSNBC reporter interview two of the legislators, one black, one white, responsible for the bill. While they were talking, this sole protester, a guy with a confederate flag, was standing behind them in what I think was stoic resignation. Then I remembered all the churches I have seen in Mississippi, each one the nicest, best taken care of building on its block.
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