The coming days and weeks will no doubt be busy, as the University of Mississippi’s Associated Student Body will be discussing and voting on whether to remove the state flag from campus due to its inclusion of Confederate symbols.
In a recent letter to the editor, an alumnus of the University urged the ASB to “do the right thing” by keeping the flag and thus avoiding “blatant political agendas.”
Efforts to remove or alter the state’s flag, the writer argued, represented “total ignorance and insanity” and would do nothing more than further divide both the community and the University. While it is clear the alumnus still feels a strong connection to the university, their plea to resist change on campus may be sacrificing the future in order to preserve the past.
It is impossible to delve into a discussion of whether or not the flag should be removed without addressing the elephant in the room: Confederate symbols and their connection to racial discrimination. The main point of contention lies in the relationship between the Confederate States of America and the institution of racial slavery.
What represents a persistent point of confusion in the modern day could not have been clearer to those living in the middle of the 19th century.
One need look no further than the ordinances of secession and the countless speeches, sermons and articles written during the Civil War to see that those living in the newly formed Confederacy recognized, and often lauded, their attempts to create a nation founded to safeguard and expand the institution of slavery.
To prove this point, let us look at evidence taken from our own state of Mississippi in the waning days of the Civil War.
By early spring of 1865, the Confederacy found itself in dire circumstances as material, territorial and human losses reached previously unimaginable proportions.
In a last-ditch effort to save the dying nation, many within the Confederacy’s military and political infrastructure suggested arming slaves to fight for the Southern polity.
While this idea first surfaced, and was largely dismissed, in early 1864 at the insistence of General Patrick Cleburne of the Army of the Tennessee, by 1865 there no longer seemed to exist any alternative to fill the Confederate military’s depleted ranks.
While the Mississippian, based out of the state capitol of Jackson, begrudgingly approved of this potential plan as a way to preserve the Confederacy’s independence, the Jackson News bitterly opposed any such proposals. Letting slavery die as a means to save the nation would represent, according to the News, “a total abandonment of the chief object of the war.”
The editor of the News went on to conclude that, if the institution of slavery proved “irretrievably undermined,” then the rights of the states were likewise destroyed.
“Why fight one moment longer,” the editor lamented. “If the object and occasion of the fight is dying, dead or damned?”
If those within the Confederacy recognized the fundamental connection between the nation and the institution of racial slavery, why can’t we over one hundred and fifty years later?
It seems as though time has induced, at best, a sort of historical amnesia and, at worst, a willful distortion of the past.
Now let us return to the main point of this article, the upcoming ASB debate concerning the state flag and its place on the university’s campus.
While the alumnus mentioned previously argues the ASB should avoid political intrigue, they largely fail to realize that when Mississippi chose to include Confederate symbols in its new flag at the end of the 19th century, instead of keeping the Magnolia Flag, it was explicitly committing a political act of resistance and defiance.
Finally, what about the concern that removing the flag would inflame tensions and bitterly divide both the University and the surrounding community?
In order for this fear to come to fruition, one has to assume the university was relatively united beforehand, which is either a fantasy or a delusion.
To find such a united front, one must look back to the fall of 1962 when scores of students, alongside local townspeople, rallied behind the Confederate flag once more to violently resist integration and uphold white supremacy.
The proverbial line in the sand has been drawn, and it is up to the ASB to choose a side.
Whether they make strides toward a more inclusive future, or they chose to bolster an exclusionary past, is something only time will tell.
