The state flag of Mississippi flies at the Governor's Mansion in Jackson, Miss.
(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
Mississippi lawmakers voted Sunday to surrender the Confederate battle emblem from their state flag, triggering raucous applause and cheers more than a century after white supremacist legislators adopted the design a generation after the South lost the Civil War.
READ MORE: Mayor of Mississippi town cries while signing order to take down state flag
Mississippi Lieutenant Governor and Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tate Reeves speaks to reporters before appearing with President Donald Trump at a “Keep America Great” campaign rally at BancorpSouth Arena on November 1, 2019 in Tupelo, Mississippi.
In this April 25, 2020 photograph, a small Mississippi state flag is held by a participant during a drive-by “re-open Mississippi” protest past the Governor’s Mansion, in the background, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
That dynamic changed in a matter of weeks as an extraordinary and diverse coalition of political, business, religious groups and sports leaders pushed to change the flag.
Religious groups — including the large and influential Mississippi Baptist Convention — said erasing the rebel emblem from the state flag is a moral imperative.
