“I can’t tell you how many white people, many of them young, have walked up to me at a restaurant or a grocery store and said: ‘Thank you. I was taught the Civil War wasn’t about slavery,” Editor Donna Ladd writes, explaining why her Mississippi newsrooms have reported difficult historic context for over two decades.
A 2021 Confederate Heritage Month proclamation, signed by Gov. Tate Reeves, again appeared first on a Sons of Confederate Veterans Facebook page on April 8, 2021. “It’s official-April is Confederate Heritage and History Month in our state of Mississippi and we observe it with pride! #ConfederateHeritage #SouthernHeritage #HonoringOurAncestors,” the SCV Camp 265 Rankin Rough & Ready’s Facebook page says.
In “Look Away, Look Away,” filmmaker Patrick O’Connor captures the battle to change, or keep, Mississippi’s state flag by turning his lens on Mississippians who made the flag fight their fight. In five years of filming, he came to see the debate as about more than the flag. The story is about identity itself: “It’s about who you think you are,” O’Connor says.
In his annual State of the State address Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves memorialized a long, cruel 2020 from the steps of the Mississippi Capitol. Behind the governor lay nearly a year of an uncontained pandemic and a hospital system just beginning to contain the crush of the virus’ worst wave. Still, Reeves struck an undeniably triumphant note with his address.
With long voting lines in the state and across the country expected on Nov. 3, voters could be subjected to more electioneering outside the polls than in years past. Electioneering is defined as “the activity of trying to persuade people to vote for a particular political party.”
That Confederate emblem that haunted my childhood represented a heritage that brutalized, castrated, lynched and systematically oppressed the rights of my ancestors.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed “a law to turn a page in Mississippi today,” as he put his signature on legislation that will retire the state’s Confederate-themed flag. With legislative officials and African American leaders surrounding him, the Republican governor said that recent events have changed his mind about what the State of Mississippi should do about the long-controversial symbol.
Mississippi officials across the state will soon lower the Confederate-themed state flag for a final time after veto-proof majorities in both houses of the Legislature voted to retire it and begin the process of creating a new state flag. Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, has already signaled that he will sign the legislation.
While we are the future of this great state, you are the present. As lawmakers, you have the unique responsibility to decide how Mississippi meets this moment. This time, let’s get it right.”
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
info@mississippifreepress.org
tips@mississippifreepress.org
events@mississippifreepress.org
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).
