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Honor and Stuffby JFP Staff

THE AMBER HELSEL FONDREN CORNER

BUILDINGTHE DONNA LADD

SONIC BOOM OF THE SOUTH

THE TODD STAUFFER

WATERWORKS CURVE

THE R.L. NAVE CLARION-LEDGER

BUILDINGTHE DUSTIN CARDON

MISSISSIPPI VETERANS MEMORIAL STADIUM

PARKING LOTTHE JANIS LANE

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COUNTY COURTHOUSE

THE BEST BUY SAMS CLUB

MEMORIAL PARKWAY (Previously known as County Line Road.)

THE COSTCO

SMITH WILLS STADIUM

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BOOTS & MORE

In honor of Jacksons newest charter schools, Smilow Collegiate and Joel E. Smilow Prep, being named after Joel Smilow, the former CEO of Playtex Products, we decided to compile a list of equally honorable titles that we wish would come our way (and a few for our favorite people).

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$11 per hour but provided check stubs showing they received the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Meanwhile, the companies raked millions from Mississippi taxpayers. Both North American Labor Services and Culpepper Enterprises have been ad-ministratively dissolved, state records show. The SPLC suit alleges that North American Labor Services continued operating after it dissolved in 2009; Culpepper dissolved in December 2014, according to the Missis-sippi Secretary of States website. The Mississippi Department of Fi-nance and Administration also lists Cul-pepper as receiving more than $20 mil-lion in state contracts, mostly with the Department of Transportation for grass mowing and other roadside landscaping, since 2003. Before 2008, in addition to the MDOT agreements, Culpepper also held landscaping contracts with the Mississippi National Guard. A federal spending database lists $489,698 worth of assistance to Culpep-per between 2007 and 2015. Between 2008 and 2009, the company also held a number of contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture through Hurricane Katrina re-covery funds. We are not privy to information in the suit since we are not involved in it. Culpepper Enterprises did do work for us, said Morgan Miller, a spokeswoman for MDOTs central district. They were awarded a contract after meeting the criteria based on state laws for a mowing operation. We did not have a con-tract with North American Labor Services. The SPLC suit against Culpepper and North American Labor Services also alleges that the workers had to pay a recruiter in Mexico hundreds of dollars as well as pay for their own transportation to Mississippi each year and equipment fees to the com-panies. The suit asks for unpaid and over-time wages. These workers dont have any freedom of choice, Rich said. The plaintiffs in the caseErnesto Carillo-Ramirez, Jose Delgado-Palomera, Nestor Delgado-Zamorano, Oscar Pacheco-Santana, Victor Sanchez-Jaimes, Joel Tapia-Ruiz and Adan Esparza-Haroare current-ly in Mexico.

Long-Term Effects Although the Culpepper workers are properly documented, some immigrant-rights activists see parallels between that case and cases involving undocumented workers in recent Mississippi history, including earlier this year. On May 28, nine workers were called

to the offices of American Dairyco LLC in Edwards, where they were arrested by agents with Attorney General Jim Hoods office and the U.S. Immigration and Cus-toms Enforcement. Its a different situation, but the moti-vations are the same, said Bill Chandler, ex-ecutive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, of the lawsuit against Cul-pepper and North American Labor Services. The men, from Mexico and Central America, ranged in age from 20 to 40 and were charged with identity theft for alleg-edly purchasing fraudulent documentation to bypass the E-Verify system. In a way, the arrest demonstrated the effectiveness of the system, which the Legislature passed in 2008 to put most of the responsibility for making sure workers, including im-migrants, are legally autho-rized to work in the U.S. F o u r weeks before the arrests, after an I-9 audit by the IRS, one em-ployee was found guilty of possessing f r audu l en t i d en t i f i c a -tion. ICE stepped in to arrest the un-documented worker, and in turn, the audit became an opportunity for Hoods Consumer Pro-tection Division, part of the Homeland Security Task Force offices, to conduct a E-Verify audit of all American Dairyco employees. In a press release, Hood said Boulder, Colo.-based American Dairyco fully coop-erated with the investigation and would not face penalties. Meanwhile, the costs for the immigrant workers who often go into debt to travel to this country, legally and illegally, to help their families are high and that the punishment for breaking the rules is still unevenly doled out against workers and their families back home, Chandler said. What happens is that corporations are looking for vulnerable workers, employers are looking for vulnerable workers, and more often than not, they find undocumented

workers who, because of their lack of status, agree to work at lower wages, he said. In 2008, more than 600 immigrants were arrested at Laurel-based Howard In-dustries in the largest workplace raid in U.S. history, which resulted in most im-migrants being deported. For its role, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett ordered How-ard Industries to pay $2.5 million in fines for conspiracy to violate immigration laws in 2011. Although the fine against the com-pany was hefty, at the minimum wage rate of $7.25, their deportations represented ap-proximately $9 million in lost yearly wages for the workers and their families. In the case of the American Dairyco raid, the nine defendants each face up to $10,000 in fines and two to 15 years in

prison if found guilty of identity theft. One week after their initial hearing, Hinds County Circuit Judge Melvin Priester Sr. denied the mens requests for bond and remanded the case to a grand jury. A hearing is scheduled for the morning of Friday, Sept. 11. C h a n d l e r points to various laws that protect employers who unknowing ly hire undocu-mented workers, including the fed-

eral 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Yet, these laws leave workers susceptible to fines, jail time and deportation; in 2014 alone, some 315,000 undocumented work-ers were arrested and deported, information from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shows. As a result, hundreds of thousands of families are left with little or no income, as many of these workers enter the U.S. with family or intentions to send money back over the border, Chandler said. In addition, employers encourage un-documented workers to seek out options to bypass the state mandated E-Verify system, in which employers confirm Social Security information the employee supplies, he said. The E-Verify system provides immunity for employers who hire workers without valid documentation, shifting the blame to faulty

Social Security numbers and a system that shows a false-positive 5 percent to 7 percent of the time.

A Rare Victory Attorneys for the SPLC and activists in Mississippi see a glimmer of hope for suc-cess in the case in a settlement from Febru-ary. A federal jury in New Orleans awarded $14 million in compensatory and punitive damages to five guest workers from India the court determined had been defrauded and exploited in a labor trafficking scheme engineered by Mobile, Ala.-based Signal In-ternational. The suit, which the SPLC brought on behalf of the workers at Signals Pascagoula facility, determined that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Signal used the U.S. governments H-2B guest worker program to import nearly 500 men from India to work as welders, pipefitters and to repair hurricane-damaged oil rigs and other facili-ties. The workers had each paid a recruiter in India between $10,000 and $20,000 to get on the list. A month-long trial resulted in a jury verdict that found that Signal and its agents had engaged in labor trafficking, fraud, rack-eteering, discrimination, false imprisonment and retaliation. It was a rare victory, Chan-dler said. Thousands over the years, really, mil-lions of workers have been arrested and de-ported, but only a handful of employers have been sanctioned, Chandler said. Many advocates want to see the guest worker program abolished. In 2009, a series of immigration reforms, including to the guest worker program, Democratic U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee authored died in a House subcommittee. A 2013 SPLC report on guest workers titled Close to Slavery concluded: We are a nation of immigrants, not a nation of temporary workers. Temporary work-ers who come to the United States make a valuable contribution to our nation. They should be incorporated into our society as full members so that they too are entitled to the same benefits, rights, and protec-tions enjoyed by all workers in the United States. The time has come for Congress to abolishnot expandour shamefully abusive guestworker system. In March 2015, the guest worker pro-gram was suspended after a federal judge in Florida ruled that the Labor Department lacks the legal authority to regulate; it was reinstated two weeks later. Email R.L. Nave at rlnave@jacksonfree-press.com. Comment at www.jfp.ms.

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, said American companies seek out vulnerable workers who, because of their lack of legal status, agree to work for lower wages.

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TALK | justice

Lavell Brown needed the second job to keep up financially. He was already working at UPS and attending classes at Jones County Junior College, but his father had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer, and the pressure weighed on him. A friend offered Brown a solution in the form of another jobSubway, where he could pick up hours he needed. What sounded like a solution turned into a nightmare, however, that has changed the course of Browns life. Brown is gay, but he had never felt the need to make that publicly known because

it was his own business, his life. Brown, 31, lives in the small town of Heidelberg but commuted to the Subway in Hattiesburg.Browns lawsuit alleges that management repeatedly referred to Brown as a woman. On one occasion, for example, an employee commented that We have a man working here now, and management said aloud Thats not a man, thats a woman, the complaint states. Within the first month of working at Subway, rumors about Browns sexual ori-entation began to swirl. The females would go home and tell their male boyfriends that I was gay, so it was basically like I was outed, he said. I had to come out to my family and everybody about this because no one knew about me because I keep my business to myself.

Brown didnt want his family to hear rumors first, so he decided to sit down and tell them that he was gay, and his mother did not take it well. Brown said his mother was aware that something was wrong, and that he hadnt been acting like himself since he started working at Subway. She was crying all the time, Brown said. She would say things like she always wanted me to produce a grandchild for her. Meanwhile, at work, the discrimina-tion continued, perpetuated by his manag-ers who continued to call him a he/she to his face and in front of customers, the

complaint says, which represents one side of a legal dispute. They treated me like I was dirt or something because like I was beneath them just because I dont like sleeping with fe-males, and I dont really understand that, Brown said. Brown was the only man who worked at the store, but he did not understand why that meant he should be targeted. He said that even if one of his co-workers were a les-bian, he wouldnt treat them any different. You never know how people think of you and what a person would do to you just for not being the way that they want you to be, he said. Brown felt trapped in his job because he needed the money, and he couldnt complain to his managers about the dis-

crimination since they were perpetuating it themselves. He worked at the Subway from Aug. 26 until Oct. 20. He quit when he could not take the treatment anymore. He continued to take care of his father, who took his sons outing bet-ter than his mother. Eventually, Browns relationship with his mother improved, but his fathers health did not. In May, his father passed away. My mother, she treats me like she treated me before she found outnow shes OK with it and treats me like Im her son; now we have a mother-son relation-

ship, Brown said in an interview. After he left Subway, Brown filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that issued a notice of his right to sue in February. Brown accordingly filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Southern Dis-trict Court in May. The Subway Sandwich Shop of Lau-rel Inc. filed its response to the Brown complaint on July 22. Through attor-neys, the business makes a number of defenses, including that Brown failed to meet the procedural prerequisites to Title VII and that Subway acted in good faith and without malice toward Brown. The lawyers at Copeland, Cook, Taylor & Bush, who are defending the company, did not respond to voicemails or emails.

A Case with Potential Browns lawyers, Trey Waterloo and Heather Martin, said the timing for the case is good because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming same-sex mar-riage in June. While some legal scholars say that case does not offer protection against workplace discrimination, other experts believe that LGBT people are already protected under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law protects a person from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national ori-gin. However, the federal courts have not issued a definitive ruling on how this law protects members of the LGBT commu-nity in the workplace. Browns attorneys believe that this case could set such a precedent. The EEOC said in June that employers should inter-pret discrimination based on sex to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Additionally, discrimi-nation based on identity is prohibited, and you cant discriminate against a person based on what you think a man or woman should act like. Since the legalization of same-sex mar-riage with the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling this past summer, LGBT advocates have voiced concern that workplace discrimina-tion is the next hurdle their community faces, especially since sexual orientation is not a protected class in Title VII. Martin said EEOCs filing implies that a new class does not need to be created in order for a person to have the same protection. The timing of the new EEOC filing makes it possible for the court to use sex as a protected class in Browns case. The case was filed less than two months before the EEOC filing came out, and Waterloo and Martin say they are confident that their case is on point factually to give the court the oppor-tunity to rule that discrimination based on sexual orientation can be ruled illegal on the basis of sex in Title VII. Brown filed his suit without any knowledge of the EEOCs filing, and he just hopes that justice is served in his case. I would hope that people would think that they dont have to be scared to come out about something that they know is not right, if you feel like youre not be-ing treated right, you need to stand up for what you believe in. Browns case is in the discovery phase and likely will be until spring. If the case cannot be resolved out of court, a trial date could be set for fall 2016. Comment at jfp.ms. Email Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com.

The Next Fight: LGBT Workplace Rightsby Arielle Dreher

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TALK | education

Cedric Napoleon, 14, hadnt eaten lunch that day in 2002. The special-education student had gotten in trouble that morning and been pun-ished with a delayed lunch. At 2:30 p.m., he tried to get up out of his chair and leave, but his teacher pushed him back into and tried to hold him there. The small boy kept struggling, so the teacherwho was 6 feet tall and weighed 230 poundsput him face down on the floor in a prone restraint and then sat on him. He struggled, saying repeatedly: I cant breathe. If you can speak, you can breathe, his Killeen, Texas, middle-school teacher snapped at him. Shortly after that, Cedric stopped speaking and struggling. He stopped moving at all. The teacher however kept sitting on him, and then propped him up, and her aide wiped drool off his face. He then fell over and died in front of a classroom of students before his foster mother got to the school. Toni Price gave this testimony about her foster son, Cedric, in front of the U.S. House Education and Labor Commit-tee in 2009. Cedric had suffered from behavioral problems after a rough child-hood during which his birth parents had starved him, forcing him to dig through trashcans for food. Price was one of many parents who came forward following a Government Ac-countability Office investigation that de-tailed several deaths of children in schools who died due to use of a restraint and chil-dren hurting themselves when secluded. A U.S. Department of Education study in 2012 found that restraint or seclusion was used on 110,000 students nationally, but this number is likely low because several states dont track data consistently. Since the 2009 GAO report, states be-gan to adopt policies. Federal leadership has largely left restraint and seclusion policies up to individual states to adopt. Mississippi is one of five states that do not have a state-wide policy or voluntary guidelines. But things are changing. In June, the Mississippi Department of Education drafted a restraint and seclusion policy that is already under tough scrutiny by parent, education and advocacy groups around the state. The organizations fully support the creation and implementation of a policy, but they are not satisfied with the policy as it is written now. The review process for Policy 4013 began in June, when advocates stepped in and asked for an extension of the time pe-riod for review. The ACLU asked for an oral proceeding in early July.

Critics: Policy Too Lenient On July 17, the ACLU of Mississippi, Families as Allies, the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, and several other advocacy groups, parents and individuals filed a joint public comment voicing their concern with the proposed policy: primarily, that its too lenient, and still allows seclusion as a means of punishment in schools. Policy 4013 is seven pages long and outlines restraint and seclusion procedures, training and documentation requirements, and administrative procedures for school districts to follow. The coalition of organi-zations drafted a proposed policy that is 13 pages long. Advocates are concerned that the policy up for approval is not strong enough to keep children safe because a lot of the required trainings and data collection will be the re-sponsibility of individual districtsnot the state. As a part of their proposed policy and public comment, the coalition of organiza-tions conducted their own 400-person poll and used the findings in their public-com-ment letter, hoping to enhance the current draft of the proposed policy. Their survey revealed that restraint and seclusion were being used to control behav-ior instead of when a child is in danger. Ad-vocates fundamentally believe that restraint and seclusion should only be used as a last resort, if the child is in dangernot as a substitute for other disciplinary procedures. In order for a teacher to use a restraint or seclude a student, they are supposed to be trained under the states proposed policy, but the MDE does not provide a list of evi-dence-based trainings or give any names of potential trainings, leaving districts that have no knowledge of the policy in the dark. Joy Hogge, executive director of Fami-lies as Allies, said this could be problematic for school districts. You run the risk of a school district trying to do due diligence (choosing a train-ing on their own), and maybe its somebody thats not qualified, she said. Proper training leads to successful im-plementation, preventing situations where a teacher like Cedrics go too far in their re-straint. Training is also crucial to serve the special-education student population, who may or may not be able to voice their dis-comfort or pain clearly. We know that children with special needs are more likely to experience restraint and seclusion, so that makes it even more important that any policies related to it are kept in best practice, Hogge said. The ACLU and the Coalition agree that seclusion should not be allowed in schools. Some use seclusion as a form of

punishment, leaving a child alone in a des-ignated roomoften unsupervised. Hogge said that if seclusion has to be used, a padded room that does not endan-ger the student in any way must be desig-nated, and that students should not be left unsupervised at anytime. The 2009 GAO report included grim stories of students hurting themselves while in seclusion without supervision. MDEs policy allows regulated seclusion. Theres no circumstance in which it seems to be warranted and which the safety of the child can be guaranteed, Hogge said. Its too easy for the child to end up hurting themselves in a seclusion room. Seclusion: Controversial and Ineffective? Seclusion used in public schools as a means of discipline has always been contro-versial, but in the past few years, the ACLU has been pushing the Department of Edu-cation to adopt a policy. Rene Hardwick is heading up its initiative to change policy in the state. Hardwick said MDE might not pro-hibit seclusion, but that doesnt mean in-dividual districts cannot write it into their own policies. MDE will set the bare-min-imum standards Hardwick said, by regu-lating training and setting procedures for recording incidents. School districts can go above and beyond with their own policies as long as they align with the departments overarching framework. Jackson Public Schools adopted its own restraint and seclusion policy in February of this year. District spokesman

Jonathan Sherwin said the implementa-tion plan is still in development. Training and implementation have not been com-pleted, but are still ongoing. Hardwick is pushing MDE to bring educators in to discuss the policy, as well as organizations because they are the ones with the knowledge, skills and experience to back up things they think will work and things they think wont. Until you have educators at that table, MDE, your policy is not going to be effective, she said. Hardwick submitted model poli-cies to Sunflower and Harrison county school districts. The Mississippi Department of Education does not keep track of which school districts have developed their own restraint and seclusion policies, and cur-rently, there is no system in place for the department to monitor the schools at all. Advocates from more than 14 organiza-tions had been pushing for such a policy. The ACLU started working with the Department of Education as early as 2009 to implement one, but meetings with advocates and the ACLU that start-ed in March have finally set the policy in motion. On Sept. 30, a public comment proceeding on the restraint and seclu-sion policy will be at 10 a.m., at the Mis-sissippi Schools for the Blind and Deaf Auditorium. Comment at jfp.ms/news. Email re-porter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jackson freepress.com.

I Cant Breathe: Restraint, Seclusion Under Reviewby Arielle Dreher

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Joy Hogge, executive director of Families as Allies, is one of several advocates asking the Mississippi Department of Education to strengthen its Restraint and Seclusion policy before implementing it.

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Tripping, Flipping, Fixing, Selling and Pimping

Real Transparency, Please, Not Smoke and Mirrors

O ne online dictionary defi nes transparency as free from pretense or deceit, easily detected or seen through and readily understood. However, too many gov-ernment agencies at the local and state levels are only ostensibly transparent. For example, the state-run Transparency Mississippi website claims to contain a wealth of data available on the site that is searchable, viewable on screen and can also be printed for offl ine usage. It was a handy tool, although not very user-friendly. Sometime in the past year, however, the state switched to a new, even less friendly system. Not only is the new site diffi cult to navigate, but now government watchdogs who want a snapshot of, say, the past fi ve years of government contracts, have to perform one search on the old site and a separate search on the new system, and then do some basic math. Then, take the example of the Mississippi Secretary of States campaign-fi nance report portal. Sure, the reports are all there for the public to view, just as state law requires, but theres no good way to search for all campaign donations from a particular contributor to get a good picture of whos throwing money around in our elections. Theres another toolwhich is fabulouswhere the Montana-based National Institute on Money in State Politics can break state donations down by donor; however, there can be a few days of lag time in getting informa-tion from the states.

First-world problems, to be sure. We recog-nize that were well ahead of where we were even a decade ago. But were nowhere near where we should be, especially if you look at organizations like the Center for Responsive Politics and its website, OpenSecrets.com, and the Sunlight Foundation, as well as other states more ad-vanced transparency websites, all of which pro-vide evidence that the tools exist if governments are willing to invest in them. We have said before that we support the Jackson City Councils dedication to imple-menting a new city-spending tracking ser-vice. Perhaps its a bit of one-upsmanship, but Mayor Tony Yarbers recent announcement of an open-data project through Bloomberg Phi-lanthropies and the aforementioned Sunlight Foundation could work well in tandem with the councils plan. In order for these tools to work and rep-resent true transparency, city offi cials cant just build a website and call it openness. A gov-ernment-spending and accountability website is only as good as the quality and consistency of the information that it contains. It is only effective if the design is simple, intuitive and well-maintained. We hope these are a part of the discussion when the mayors open-data governing commit-tee begins meeting in the coming weeks to develop what Mayor Yarber has indicated he wants to be the best city open-data site in the nation.

B oneqweesha Jones: Welcome to the new fall premiere of Boneqweesha Live on Ghetto Science Public Television. Allow me to begin the show with these poignant words from the classic Quincy Jones song, Everything Must Change. The young become the old / And mysteries do unfold / Cause thats the way of time / Nothing and no one goes unchanged / There are not many things in life / You can be sure of For a while, I believed that certain types of people would never change. On todays show, the Finance Pimp is on the set to prove me wrong. Finance Pimp: Thank you for this opportunity to share my trans-formation from a mean and careless fi nancier who shames and degrades folk who are down on their luck to an individual willing to educate and empower fi nancially challenged citizens. Boneqweesha Jones: My mind recalls the time when you, Simon LeGreedy and Sheriff Rudy McNastiness foreclosed on and evicted hom-eowners Mr. Tom and Ms. Topsy. What will you do to help the fi nancially challenged and vanishing middle class? Finance Pimp: In the past, I would say vehemently, I am the Fi-nance Pimp, and I want my homes back! Today, I have a strong desire to help disenfranchised individuals get back on their feet with an affordable fi nancial-empowerment and real-estate course this fall semester at Hair Did Universitys School of Cosmetology and Vocational Studies titled Just Straight Tripping, Flipping, Fixing, Selling and Pimping Homes. Boneqweesha Jones: Wow! The Finance Pimp is giving his homes back!

Email letters and opinion to letters@jacksonfreepress.com, fax to 601-510-9019 or mail to 125 South Congress St., Suite 1324, Jackson, Mississippi 39201. Include daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, as well as factchecked.

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Why it Stinks: First off, war is costlyand hellishwhether its waged with machine guns or supercomputers. Second, its interesting that Sen. Cochran, who came within a hairs width of losing his Senate seat in the Republican primary against state Sen. Chris McDaniel because of his penchant for pork-barrel spending over the years, is already back in the saddle raining federal taxpayer cash on Mississippi and beating his chest about it. Maybe Mississippis congressional Republicans didnt learn their Tea Party lesson after all.

I t wont happen here! We dont have those problems in Jackson. Ive heard these words in recent months following the numerous police shootings of young black men across the country, the murder of nine congregants of Emanuel AME Zion in Charleston, S.C., and the deaths of Sandra Bland in Texas and Jonathan Sanders in Mississippi. Out of the growing pain and anger that arose from irresponsible, oppressive violence aimed at those within the Africa American community, voices joined to declare that indeed Black Lives Mat-ter. Soon, the pundits on the right declared to their followers that black lives matters meant that white lives no longer mat-tered and argued that it became the rallying cry of black terrorists to de-fend what they perceive as targeted violence against law-enforcement officers. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter activists earnestly, and painfully, have made their case that this is not about black lives mattering more than other lives. Rather, they remind us, it is way past time for those in positions of power to recognize that black lives matter just as much as those of whites. The vitriolic arguments against the Black Lives Matter movement rise out of the lurking racism that has been hiding in the closets of white self-congratulatory we are past racism facades. Add to that mix the intense pushback to those of us who believe it is long past time for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the field of the Mississippi flag, and the ongoing blight of racism cannot be ignored. No longer is it: It wont happen here! It is: Its just a matter of time. What can and must we do so that it will not happen here? As a community, what can we do to address the underlying racism and fears that are the cause of these incidents and tensions? What resources are available to our law-enforcement officers to help them protect and serve, and to our community to be able to support the majority of the officers who are hardworking, conscientious and compassionate, and want excellent relations with the people they are charged to serve? What resources are available to re-edu-cate our peers who live in denial of the ongo-ing insidious fears and hatred that personal and systemic racism spawn, which is even emblazed upon our state symbols. Jackson 2000 can help! This 26-year-old organization has been addressing the is-sue of race since its beginning. Our Dialogue Circles have brought together people of all

races to have honest, in-depth conversations that are sometimes painful as they encour-age self-examination, but consistently, they have been described as life-changing. Not only do these conversations bring personal transformation, they also can lead to system-ic change that is ultimately what is needed. The goal of effective inter-racial dialogue has always been to begin the process of undo-ing racism by first coming to terms with the reality that racism exists and that racism not only has impacted but continues to nega-tively impact our personal lives and the lives

of our neighbors. Dialogue Circles are comprised of 10 to 12 persons of diverse eth-nic and cultural back-grounds who commit to spending 12 hours with one another in dialogue that a trained facilita-tor guides about their personal history with racism. Participation in such a circle is free, you can register on our web site, jackson2000.org. In coming months,

Jackson 2000 will not only host numer-ous Dialogue Circles but will also focus energy on efforts to undo racism in the public arena. Following up on an intense workshop held in August entitled Un-doing Racism, Jackson 2000 will offer skilled training for those who are cur-rently engaged in transforming systemic racism or who wish to be so engaged. Awareness of differing viewpoints and cultures must happen: Ignorance needs to be dispelled and truths told in a safe environ-ment with the purpose of moving forward on a continuum of understanding. Jackson 2000 offers to our businesses, community organizations, faith groups and schools the opportunity to call together a Dialogue Circle within their particular contexts to hear one anothers stories and to participate in intentional conversations to transform our perceptions of the racial biases that for too long have divided our society. We offer our proven resources to local law-enforcement officers, public servants and members of our community in order to be proactivebefore another tragic inci-dent occurs. We have successfully scaled our proven method to meet the limitations and needs of numerous contexts, and we will be glad to work with your organization to provide a workshop suited to your particular organizations environment. Just ask. Were happy to help. J. David Waugh is the co-chairman of Jackson 2000. For more information, visit jackson2000.org.

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11

Time to Understand and Undo Racism

J. DAVID WAUGH

Editor-in-Chief Donna LaddPublisher Todd Stauffer

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B y the time an aging Jefferson Davis moved into a borrowed cottage on the Beauvoir plantation near Biloxi with a gorgeous view of the Gulf of Mexico, his own life had mirrored the rise, fall and disappointment of the Confed-eracy. In a storied life, the Kentucky native had helped lead two nations, including one against the other; had owned hundreds of slaves before being forced to let them go; and had been indicted and put into solitary confinement for treason. After Davis release from prison in Virginia in 1867 for his role in the Souths insurrection against the U.S. government, he faced a very different reality from his ear-lier life as the owner of several plantations and thousands of acres in Mississippi and Louisiana. By then, it was the short-lived era of Reconstruction in a war-torn nation, and Confederate leaders no longer had the benefit of the wealth and prestige they had enjoyed due to their dedication to a slave-driven economy across the United States. The South was, for a few years, under control of the victors of the warthe Re-

publicans (or Free-Soilers) who had brought freedom to African Americans during the war. Freedmen were enjoying equality for the first time in the history of the nation. Davis adopted state of Mississippi was even elect-ing black officials to statewide office for the only time in its history, before or since Re-construction, including two U.S. senators. During that era when the tables were briefly turned against the former Confed-erate states, Davis was unemployed with a wife and four children and bounced around Canada and England before landing a job in 1869 as president of a Memphis life-insur-ance company. But, like that of the former Confederates states, Davis luck improved in 1876, the same year that was the beginning of the end of Reconstruction. It was a pivotal time in post-Civil War twists and turns; southern Dixiecrats wanted to return to a time when black people were subjugated rather than being equal or even in charge, and the tools to do it were a mixture of terror and politics. Radicals calling them-selves Redeemers devised strategies such as the Mississippi Plan of 1875 to overthrow

the Republicans in office in the South by threats and violence when necessary. By the mid-1870s, and while evok-ing the symbols of the failed Confederacy, heavily armed and well-financed vigilante groups such as the White League birthed in Louisiana and the Red Shirts in Mississippi followed the lead of the Ku Klux Klan and openly started harassing Republicans serving or running for office, and threatening and even murdering both black freedmen and the whites who supported their freedom. The threats and violence set the stage for federal capitulation to the southern planter elite in the Compromise of 1877 to resolve the disputed presidential election. To get southern lawmakers to agree to Ruther-ford B. Hayes win over Democrat Samuel Tilden, Republicans agreed to withdraw fed-eral troops from the South, ending Recon-struction and allowing the South to begin a century of Jim Crow laws and Black Codes that blocked black southerners from voting, attending integrated schools, race-mixing or using public facilities until the 1960s. The compromise allowed the North

and South to reconcile as a nation, but brought anything but reconciliation to the races in the South, returning life for blacks as close as possible to slavery times, but without being owned outright by whites. The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in his 1935 book, Black Reconstruction in America. Jefferson Davis fortunes tracked with those of the southern states when an ad-mirer offered him the use of Beauvoir to write his two-volume memoir of his four years as the president of the Confeder-ate States of America with CSAs stated goals of maintaining and extending slav-ery into new states and guaranteeing that their runaway slaves were returned. Sarah Ellis Dorsey, a novelist from a slave-holding family in Natchez and her husband, Samuel Worthington Dorsey of Maryland, had owned several plantations and many slaves, including Beauvoir. A widow by 1876, she invited Davis to live on her plantation, then willed her capital and property to him when she died in 1878.

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A Symbol of Hate or Reconciliation?by Arielle Dreher

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In the Beauvoir cottage, Davis told his story about the Confederacy in the two-vol-ume The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. A U.S. senator from Missis-sippi in the lead-up to the Civil War, Davis had opposed secession, correctly predicting troubles and thorns innumerable. But even 14 years after federal troops had helped 137 of Davis slaves escape from his Brier-field plantation near Vicksburg in 1863, the former CSA president still defended the institution of slavery, which his states 1861 Declaration of Secession had identified as its reason for leaving the United States. In volume 2, Davis even compared the North to a biblical serpent tempting en-slaved black peoplewhom he called sev-eral millions of human beings of an inferior racepeaceful, contented laborers in their sphereto rebel against an institution that had improved their lot. Generally they were born the slaves of barbarian masters, untaught in all the use-ful arts and occupations, reared in heathen darkness, they were transferred to shores enlightened by the rays of Christianity, Davis wrote. Never was there happier dependence of labor and capitol on each other. The tempter came, like the serpent in Eden, and decoyed them with the magic word freedom.

No Mention of Slavery A century and a half after the South surrendered, Kitsaa Stevens coordinates events for the 52-acre Beauvoir, now a pri-vate museum. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library includes the origi-nal Davis home, a cemetery of Confederate veteransit was used as a veterans home for Confederate soldiers and their families until 1957and a replica of Davis writing cottage built Hurricane Katrina destroyed the original one 10 years ago. Originally a volunteer who became an employee of the museum and grounds n 2014, Stevens organizes popular gatherings

there including Arts and Crafts Under the Oaks and View the Cruise at Beauvoir, an antique car show sponsored by the Mis-sissippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a controversial neo-Confederate group, has owned Beauvoir since 1902 when it opened as a Confederate veterans home. Beauvoir became a nonprofit museum and library in 1957, once the veterans and their families were gone, Stevens said.

Stevens, 55, is also arguably one of the more passionate defenders of the current Mississippi state flag, which has included the most notorious Confederate battle em-blem in its canton since 1894. This summer, in the wake of a renewed movement to retire the current flag the only one in the na-tion that still overtly celebrates the Confed-eracyStevens filed the initial paperwork for Ballot Initiative 54, which proposes an amendment to Mississippis Constitution that would make the current flag, adopted in 1894, the permanent state flag. Stevens said her employers, the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization, did not ask her to file the petition, but they support her decision to do so. Beauvoir administrator Greg Stewart was active in the 2001 campaign to keep the 1894 state flag and spoke about his experi-ence in a June CNN interview. The South-ern Poverty Law Center listed Stewarts in-volvement with an organization called Free Mississippi that formed back in 2000 to keep the 1894 state flag. SPLC called Free Mississippi a hate group back in 2001, but it is not currently listed because they have not been active in several years. Free Mississippis Facebook page, however, indicates that it is still actively campaigning to keep the state flag, although the contact information on the website is out-of-date. Mark Potok, senior fellow at SPLC, said that the center has never listed the Sons of

Confederate Veterans as a hate group because it doesnt have an officially racist program. The Mississippi chapter, however, is quite a bit more radical compared to other states, Potok said. In 2011, the Mississippi chapter asked the state for a commemorative license plate that would include the portrait of Na-than Bedford Forrest, a slave-master million-aire before becoming a Confederate general and the first national leader of the Klu Klux

Klan. The license plate was not approved. Reconciling Slavery The state flag, Stevens argues, was ad-opted as a reconciliation symbol, merging the memory of Civil War battles with the red, white and blue of the American flag. Our flag represents a reconciliation of that strugglethat we are working as a common entity to move forward, she said. Stevens said she has learned this history of reconciliation since she started working at the Confederate museum last year. She said she understands the viewpoint of Afri-can Americans who reject the flag because it symbolizes a war fought over slavery, but be-lieves that we should not just keep the parts of history around that make people happy. A lot of people will not visit Beauvoir, she said, because they think it promotes slavery, but she emphasized that slavery, including the hundreds of slaves Davis and his brother owned, is not mentioned anywhere on Beauvoirs tourprimarily because by the time Jefferson Davis got to the coast, the Civil War was over so Davis did not own slaves when he got to Beauvoir. Slavery is, however, discussed in great detail in Civil War revisionist books sold in Beauvoirs Stars and Bars Gift Shop. They include Was Jefferson Davis Right? by brothers James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy of Copiah County, who also wrote The South Was Right!. The

books demonize abolitionists and argue, like Davis, that enslaved Africans were well-treated and happy with their situation. Slavery, Stevens admitted, isnt talked about enough in discussions about the Civil War, but she is adamant that the flag is a positive symbol of reconciliation that Mississippi state leaders declared it to be in 1894. That year is so important to her thesis that she has filed a lawsuit in Hinds County

Circuit Court asking a judge to rewrite the title of her initiative to refer to the flag as the 1894 flag. The current initiative ballot title wording asks to keep the current state flag. Since the initiative likely would not go onto the ballot until 2018, the next time state elections are held, Stevens wanted to make sure that the initiative represented the state flag adopted in 1894 in case the flag changed before then. Once the title dispute is over and an of-ficial title is set, Stevens will have to collect more than 107,000 signatures of registered voters to get it on the ballot. The Magnolia State Heritage Cam-paign and the Coalition to Save the State Flag are the primary organizations that will help to collect signatures once Ste-vens initiative is finalized. Arthur Ran-dallson, the director of the Magnolia State Heritage Campaign, said the two orga-nizations will work with local Tea Party chapters and smaller community groups to garner support for Initiative 54. Stevens admits that her preferred reconciliation flag may lose, though. The bottom line is, if the majority votes to change our flag, thats OK be-cause we live in America, and this is a de-mocracy, and thats what the people say, she said.

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MORE STATE FLAG, see page 15

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Put It In Your Attics Talking about slavery may be taboo in-side Beauvoir, but one room is entirely dedi-cated to the Civil War, with a row of seces-sionist flags covering one wall. Mississippis secession flag contained a white star on a blue background in the canton, a magnolia tree in the center and a red stripe at the end. The flag was adopted in 1861, when Mississippis Declaration of Secession de-clared in its second sentence the reason the state was leaving the U.S. to join the Con-federacy: Our position is thoroughly iden-tified with the institution of slaverythe greatest material interest of the world. Dennie Spence, the head librarian and curator at Beauvoir, is quick to distinguish between the Confederate emblem in the current state flag and the one that flew over Mississippi when the Civil War began. In fact, he said, the federal government banned most secession-era flags when the Civil War ended in 1865 with the exception of Texas and Virginia. That included Mississippis Magnolia flag, and a Beauvoir flyer states that the first act of the 1865 Reconstruction government was to remove it. Another wall is dedicated to the pro-gression and explanation of the flags of the Confederacy. Spence explained that the original Stars and Bars is often mistook for the battle flag that rests in the canton of the Mississippi state flag, which was never the official flag of the Confederate government. The rebel flag was used in the can-ton of two iterations of the flag, but it was actually the battle flag of Gen. P.G.T. Beau-regard, used to differentiate the Confeder-ate troops from Union troops, Spence said. It gained favor in the South as the primary battle flag of Gen. Robert E. Lee in northern Virginia, and three well-known Mississippi brigades fought under it, led by Brig. Gen. William Barksdale, Gen. Carnot Posey and Jefferson Davis. Because Lees campaigns were the most successful for the South in the Civil War, the Beauregard flag was seen as a symbol of success for those Mississippi brigades com-ing home, Spence said. If youre trying to remember any war, you are going to remem-ber the best of it, he said. Certainly, the Confederate army with the most success would be Robert E. Lees in Virginia. Lee himself likely would not approve of the fight to keep the Beauregard flag fly-ing over Mississippi. His papers show that he was humbled and tortured by the loss of life in the Confederacy and was in little mood to keep celebrating the lost cause beyond the end of the way. He discouraged further use of the Beauregard flag that he fought under, advising his followers at wars end to stow it away. Put it in your attics. The general who led so many Con-federate soldiers into battle also would not attend public gatherings celebrating the

war, preferring that southerners focus on the reconciliation of the nation rather than dwelling in the past. I think it wiser, more-over, not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered, Lee wrote in an 1869 letter declining a ceremony commemorating the battle at Gettysburg.

Back to White Supremacy But to a South still angry about the

loss of the war, not to mention the human property that produced most of its wealth, romantic symbols of the Confederacy re-mained important, as did a system of white supremacy. Drafters of the Mississippi Con-stitution of 1890 took advantage of the new freedom the end of Reconstruction gave them, and inserted language that make it near-impossible for freed blacks to register to vote, own firearms or continue to partici-pate in democracy in any way. The Mississippi Constitution (that the 1894 flag was adopted into) legalized segregation, and it became the model, said Susan Glisson, a historian and the executive director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of

Mississippi. Although slavery was gone, Glisson said, white supremacy lived on in the po-litical sphereand not just in Mississippi. Glisson pointed out that the Plessy v. Fer-guson decision, that legalized segregation on a separate but equal basis, came down in 1896 from the U.S. Supreme Court. Starting right then, white supremacy replaced slav-ery as a way to suppress African Americans, Glisson said, and white-supremacist groups immediately started embracing symbols of the failed Confederacy to indicate their bias

and supremacy over African Americans. In 1894, the state decided to adopt a new Mississippi flag, which the U.S. Con-gress had to approve. The state chose a flag that incorporated the symbol Lee wanted mothballed, pointedly calling it a reconcili-ation flag, which at the time was not about race relations, but about reconciling the na-tion in a way that pleased the South. Congress approved the design. The Beauvoir curator says the recon-ciliation flag is all about celebrating mili-tary prowess, not the white supremacy the Confederates fought to preserve. You cant look at it and escape Missis-sippis military past, Spence said. The battle flag in the canton, Spence

insisted, never alone served as a Confederate flag on a national level. The battle flag was used in the canton of the last two iterations of the Confederate flag, however, and the 1894 Mississippi state flag resembles the last flag the Confederacy used. Senators at the time, Spence said, came up with the 1894 flag, likely those who helped draft the 1890 Mississippi Constitu-tion who, he believes, in their own strange ways pushed for reconciliation. Gov. John Marshall Stone, a Confeder-ate colonel, signed an order approving the flag, which historians believe was designed by Sen. E.N. Scudder of Mayersville. His daughter, Fayssoux Scudder Corneil, told the Mississippi chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1924: My father loved the memory of the valor and courage of those brave men who wore the grey. 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.

Using Race to Push That On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof exe-cuted nine African Americans inside the his-toric Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., after they invit-ed him in to share their worship service He was arrested and indicted for their murders, which authorities consider a hate crime, and is facing the death penalty. Roofs online history revealed his iden-tification with white supremacist groups, such as staunch Confederate flag and white rights defenders, the Council of Conserva-tive Citizens, which grew out of the Citizens Council that started in Mississippi in the 1950s to fight integration. A picture of Roof surfaced featuring the 1894 Beauregard flag sewn to his leather jacketthe same Confederate flag that still officially flew in front of South Carolinas Capitol. Almost immediately, an emotional campaign began nationally to remove government-funded displays of the Confederate flag. Once South Carolina legislators of both parties voted to take the flag down national attention shifted to Mississippi, the only state with a flag containing a blatant Confederate symbol, reviving a debate that had largely subsided since Mississippi voters chose to keep the 1894 flying in 2001. Several Mississippians staked out sides on the debate earlypoliticians came out for or against bringing down the flag, and some punted by saying it should be up to the voters. Mississippi House of Representa-tives Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, drew the most attention when he cited his Chris-tian faith as the reason to change the flag. Gunn is a leader in his Baptist church.

Mississippi Flag, from page 13

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MORE STATE FLAG, see page 17

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Interactive pop up exhibition of Mississippi-made furniture from d+p Design Build, SwingLab, Anthony Jones of Old House Depot, NunoErin, and 555 Custom Designs with atmospheric luminance by Davaine Lighting.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXYThe Museum and Crossroads Film Society present an outdoor movie on the BankPlus Green. $#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*$#"%*

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17

Russell Moore, the president of the Eth-ics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, wrote a wide-ly read column saying that as a Christian, specifically a white Christian, it is important to understand why African American neigh-bors would find the Confederate symbol so objectionable. Besides the flag representing an army that fought to keep slavery, hate groups who opposed civil rights have used it more recently, Moore wrote. Moore, a Mississippi native, lives in Tennessee for his position, and said he would fly a huge Mississippi state flag outside his home if it was seen as a welcoming flag to everyone. He said the state flag does not give the correct perception about his home state. I find some of the best examples of ra-cial reconciliation happening in the country in Mississippi, Moore said. So Mississippi is not the caricature that many in other parts of the country would have it. The Southern Baptist Convention it-self supported slavery in the 1800s, as well as segregation in the churchspecifically, the group formed after a split from the north-ern Baptists who opposed slavery. That was a repudiation about what the Bible teaches from the gospel of Jesus Christ, Moore said. So as time moved on, southern Baptists re-pented of that accommodation to that cul-ture that was wrong and wicked. The Southern Baptist Convention is-sued an apology in 1995 for its historic role in supporting acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter har-vest, and we recognize that the racism which yet plagues our culture today is inextricably tied to the past. Still, despite such powerful statements in favor of changing the flag, Gov. Phil Bry-ant, a Republican with strong Tea Party sup-port, said he would not call a special session to address the potential shift in public opin-ion, saying that Mississippians had already voted to keep the flag back in 2001. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves said it should be up to voters, but invoked the loaded images of outside agitators and carpetbaggers used against opponents of segregation and slavery in the states past. If the citizens of our state want to revisit that decision, and I am sure at some point we may, it will best be decided by the people of Mississippi, not by outsiders or media elites or politicians in a back room, Reeves said in a statement. But political hesitancy to take a stand hasnt stopped determined Mississippians, black and white, from lobbying either to change the flag or leave it alone. Rafael Sanchez began an online peti-tion to keep the flag almost immediately af-ter the Charleston shootings. It now has over 13,000 signatures. The Hattiesburg native said its wrong to use the Charleston tragedy as a platform for bringing the flag down. Before (Charleston), nobody had an

issue with (the flag), he said. That was my main reason for starting (the petition). Sanchez said his petition is not racially motivated and does not promote hate. He said what happened in South Carolina is tragic, but does not justify changing the flag. I think its a political maneuver by left-wing Democrats to gain more votes on their side, as well as (some conservatives), he said. The country hasnt been this racially di-vided in over 20 years, Sanchez said, but he does not view the state flag as a racial issue. I think politicians are playing people against each other in order to gain more votes, he said. They are using race to push that.

Real History This Time When Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, became the governor of Mississippi in 2000, the state did not have an official flag. The state flag had not been re-codified since 1906 when it was repealed due to a legal technical-ity, and the Mississippi Constitution had not re-established it as the official state flag since then. In 2001, this was brought to the attention of the state, and Musgrove had to file an executive order codifying the current state flag while he figured out if the Legisla-ture would want to approve a new design. It happened overnight, he told the Jackson Free Press last week. There was a standoff in the Legislature over changing the design, however, and the core bipartisan leadership refused to adopt a new flag on their ownwhich many con-sidered political suicide in a state that still could not muster the votes to elect an Afri-can American to statewide office over a cen-tury after the heady days of Reconstruction abruptly ended. So Musgrove created a commission that would make a recommendation on the state flag. Its members decided that to adopt a new flag, a referendum vote of the people would be necessary. Many 1894 flag opponents touted the flag as bad for business to gain support, avoiding talk about the reason Mississippi entered the warto preserve and expand slaveryor the flags continued use as a white-supremacist symbol. Regardless of at-tempts to downplay the controversy, the flag was a highly charged, politicized issue. Mus-grove, along with the governors of South Carolina and Georgia, were all attempting to change their flags, and all three of them had it used against them, Musgrove said. The (candidates) coming in were campaigning against changing the flag, Musgrove said. I knew it was going to be used against me, but some things are more important. Indeed, Gov. Haley Barbour at-tacked Musgrove for supporting a new flag in his successful campaign to unseat him. A new effort will face similar challenges, Musgrove said, adding that it will take strong leadership to change the Mississippi state

flag. He said a bill will never get to Gov. Bry-ant unless he publicly supports it, and while Gunns support was influential, the governor and lieutenant governor will have to support a change for it to become a reality, he said. Changing our state flag wont solve all the problems of inequality in America, he said. But not addressing something like our flag says we arent even willing to try. Former Gov. William Winter, a former

segregationist now known for outspoken racial-reconciliation efforts, said the people of Mississippi were not ready to change the flag in 2001, but he thinks enough time has passed to change the public sentiment. Winter said a flag that creates division and does not properly reflect the unity of Mississippi as a people in 2015 needs to go. Things like this take a long time, and there is more understanding of the issue (now) than there was 15 years ago, he said. I think the time has come and the people of Mississippi are ready. Some believe that the 2001 referendum was too rushed and unfocused on real issues to be effective. In 2001, business leaders felt it would be a better tactic to talk about the economic consequences of keeping the flag rather than address its connections to racism and human paina strategy that failed. Glisson, of the Winter Institute, was a part of the effort then to replace the flag. She said the new flag needed to have meaning for people in order for them to vote for itbut her advice did not carry much weight then. I suggested that instead of rushing to have a vote that we take the time to educate people about the history of the flag, she said. Such a full embrace of history would no longer leave out facts about slavery while claiming that the flag is only used to cel-

ebrate the memory of fallen troops such as the student soldiers of the University Greys, all of whom perished in Picketts Charge at Gettysburg. Glisson understands the compli-cated relationship Mississippians have with the battle flag, but the harsh reality is that it was the flag of an army devoted to preserving slaverysomething that does not represent the people of Mississippi anymore. Dan Jones, who is on leave as chancel-

lor at the University of Mississippi and does not speak for the university, remembers growing up in the 1950s and 60s in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. Then, he saw groups use the Confederate symbol to express hate and their desire to remain a segregated society. That was our (genera-tions) big exposure to the Confederate flag, and that carries over to today, Jones said. Its more than just the tragic events in Charleston that have raised the conscious-ness of many people today, Jones said. A broad conversation in society about symbols associated with slavery, segregation and in-justice toward black Americans has come to the surface in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement and electing a black presi-dent for the first time, he said. Jones said this is a different era than when he grew up in Warren County, and the flag should change because it helps damage human relationships and make people feel unwelcome or hated by people who support the flag. A state flag should indicate that all are welcome in Mississippi, he said. Now, Glisson said, communities are showing their own interest in changing the state flag without the Legislatures involve-ment. Cities including Jackson, Oxford and

Mississippi Flag, from page 15A

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MORE STATE FLAG, see page 20

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18

Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and ParksMuseum of Natural Science

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Sponsorships and other advertising opportunities available.contact the madison county chamber at 601.605.2554 or

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20 Robert AventAnne Scott Barrett Roger EriksenTimothy Meyer

T o view many more potential Mississippi state flag designs submitted by readers visit jfp.ms/msflagdiy. Submit your own designs (fun and serious) to photos@jacksonfreepress.com, or post them on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #msflagdiy."MU'MBH(BMMFSZ

Knol Aust

Greenwood have decided not to fly the flag, although the majority-black state capital can-not stop the plethora of state offices from fly-ing it. While the Legislature avoids dealing with this issue, local people are taking it upon themselves to change things, Glisson said. Everybody Was Complicit People working to change the flag arent avoiding its real history this time around. Jen-nifer Bingo Gunter, a Jackson native (and the first assistant editor of the Jackson Free Press), began a petition through moveon.org immediately following the Charleston shooting. Gunter is finishing her Ph.D. in southern history at the University of South Carolina. Like many expatriates, she still identifies as a Mississippi native to the core. I love my home state even with all its problems, she said recently. Gunter, who is white, wants the full truth told this time around, with all its warts and discomfort. Were still fighting about what the Civil War was aboutits frustrat-ing, she said. Slavery was bad, we all did it, and everybody was complicit, she says of white southerners. So far, Gunters petition has gained the most public traction with more than 66,000 signatures, the majority of which Gunter be-lieves are Mississippi citizens. Gunter is hoping to turn that support into a physical petition that can be signed and turned in to the secretary of states of-fice to counter a keep-the-flag effort such as Kitsaa Stevens initiative. She hopes that one umbrella organization will get organized by December to lead the effort before the Leg-islature reconvenes in January. Duvalier Malone, an African American, launched another online petition to bring down the state flag on change.org. Malone is from Fayette, Miss., and he now runs his own company in Washington, D.C., spe-cializing in policy, advocacy and economic developmentprimarily in Mississippi. Malones inspiration and primary mo-tivation for bringing the flag down comes from his grandmother. It was not about the petitions to keep the state flag, he said. It reminded me why

my grandmother was so nervous every time the Mississippi flag was raised. Malone said the black community in Mississippi needs to be engaged with this is-sue to bring about change. He believes the community did not come out and vote in 2001, leading to the narrative that persists today in some politicians rhetoric: We al-ready voted on that. What I want to do is challenge those African Americans in the community to be-gin to sign petitions and tell our lawmakers that we must get rid of this flag, he said. Malones petition has more than 6,000 signatures so far, and he is planning a rally for late December or early January when the Legislature returns. Malone said he is focused on the bigger picture as well as his-tory. Taking down the flag is also better for economic development, he said. We are at risk of losing economic de-velopment because (companies) dont want to be represented by that flag, he said. Its more than just the hatred; our state (should be) represented with love and hospitality. The question, of course, is how to make that change, especially since the state is largely led by white men who fear the loss of voters who still value the 1894 flag. The law or the state constitution would need to change in order to take down (or permanently keep) the current flag. A mem-ber of the Mississippi House or the Senate could introduce a bill as early as January to change the flag. If the bill passes both the House and the Senate, the governor would then either sign it into law or veto it. The Senate and House could vote to override the governor if he vetoes the bill as well. Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said he expects that a bill will be introduced when the new session of the Legislature convenes. He said such a bill would likely and logically suggest an alternative to the current flag. The Legislature then could get the citi-zens involved in the decision-making process, like they did in 2001, in several ways. They could again put it on a ballot to change the law. Depending on the timing, they could also put a proposed constitutional change on a ballot. Citizen-driven ballot initiatives to

change the constitution, like Stevens effort to prevent changes to the flag, will be on the statewide 2018 ballot, while a Legislature-ordered referendum would happen quicker. Winter said the Legislature ought to make the change itself, without involving the citizens this time. I think the Legisla-ture is in a position politically to make this change without harm to themselves from a political standpoint, he said.

A New Southern Strategy Back in 1993, Charles Milton wrote an editorial titled Changing flag is a start. Mil-ton, an Indianola native, wrote, The great flag of Mississippi should be modified to represent the advancement of our state, and the voice of all who work so diligently for her future. The Enterprise-Tocsin in Sunflower County published his op-ed in 1993 and re-published it recently at the start of July. Milton, a black firefighter in Greenville, said his passion motivates him to push for the change. His love for the state and its hos-pitable people drove him to write the article. As a janitor in a local school in 1993, Milton had an honest conversation with a teacher about how his opinions mattered and that he could inform and teach people, driving him to put pen to paper. Twenty-two years later, Miltons article now means more in the midst of the states flag debate. Milton said he is not asking for people to stop flying Confederate flags off the back of their trucks if they want to, which he said hes seen more of in the past two months than normally. Thats their right, and its dif-ferent from the gove