After being removed along with all the other state flags for building renovations, Mississippi’s state flag — which includes a depiction of the Confederate battle flag — will not go back up in a tunnel under the U.S. Capitol, nor will any of the other flags for U.S, states and territories, the chair of the committee on House Administration announced Thursday.
The decision was influenced by last year’s outcry over the presence of the Mississippi flag and other Confederate symbols in the Capitol, after a white supremacist shot and killed nine African Americans in a South Carolina church.
“Given the controversy surrounding confederate imagery, I decided to install a new display,” committee Chair Candice Miller (R-MI) said in a statement. “I am well aware of how many Americans negatively view the confederate flag, and, personally, I am very sympathetic to these views. However, I also believe that it is not the business of the federal government to dictate what flag each state flies.”
The move was first reported by the Washington Post.
In the place of the state flags in the tunnel between the Rayburn House Office Building and the U.S. Capitol, the Architect of the Capitol will install a display of reproductions of each states’ commemorative quarters. Mississippi’s quarter bears a pair of magnolia blossoms, according to the Post.
The Post also notes that the Mississippi flag remains hung in a tunnel on the Senate side of the Capitol that leads to the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Good.
The prominent confederate “symbol” on that flag makes it as abhorrent as a Nazi swastika.
Too many died fighting to eliminate that symbol. Too many lived under bondage with that symbol. Too many were terrorized with that symbol during the 160+ years since it first flew.
The Old South–why none of us can have nice things.
Teatroll Rosetta Stone: “I’m not about to call out Mississippi for its racist, treasonous symbolism or even acknowledge it for what it is, because I depend on racist traitors for my own votes, so in order to avoid the issue altogether I’m going to essentially punish everyone for it.”
committee on House Administration? sounds like code for house keeper and homemaker… pretty sure that would be seen as a good way to prove Republicans take women seriously and can put them in leadership…
tough decision… remove one state flag or replace ALL state flags with $.25 pieces…
The Confederate Flag is a symbol of treason, sedition, and violence to fellow Americans. People fighting under that flag caused the deaths of over a half million people at a time when the total US population was 31.4 million people. Today, withour population of 320 million, that would be like losing 5 million Americans in a war.
People fighting under that flag killed President Lincoln, established the KKK after they lost, and continue to believe that the Federal Government has no power over them.
The Union decided for the sake of uniting all Americans and healing the wounds of the Civil War to allow Southern states to reenter the Union as sovereign states, allowed Confederate Secessionists to reclaim their US citizenship, and even allowed them to keep and display Confederate symbols as part of their Heritage. I believe this was a major mistake. We should have hung the leaders and architects of this Treason, and forever banished all symbols and artifacts of the Confederacy.