This is an appeal to the Associated Student Body regarding your inevitable vote on the flying of the Mississippi state flag. Do not be on the wrong side of history.
Considering our University’s past and the specific events we use to represent it, it is clear that history draws hard lines between right and wrong. The judgment of hindsight grants no clemency to conviction or tradition.
It is important to observe our current situation as being another chapter in our University’s story. When the League of the South picketed our protest, they brought the struggle before the eyes of the nation, thus amplifying their enemy from us to the entire country. Their efforts are futile and their cause will inevitably fail.
They have expedited this process. One of their greatest displays of ignorance is the degree to which they are unaware of how counterintuitive their efforts are. Do not be our next opposition. Do not be on the wrong side of history.
The battle at the University of Mississippi is just one of a war being fought at the state level. Cities and counties are turning their backs on the symbol and calling for change. Dissent for it is precedented and appropriate.
When Phil Bryant cites a 2001 vote as evidence for support of the symbol, he is with out reservation suggesting that the opinion of any voter thirty-one years and younger does not matter. Phil Bryant is on the wrong side of history.
Let us show that the University of Mississippi is above this foolishness, this refusal to accept progress.
Our union transcends racial lines, and it illustrates the progress we as a student body have made at Ole Miss. We stand proudly before the nation. We are ambassadors for the solidarity felt at our school and for the change that has surely come.
This movement is established; it will be remembered. It is up to you to decide if our institution will be remembered as supporting it or resisting it.
I urge you to be a vessel for change. Be a device that helps bring equality to our campus, and establish our University as being beyond what used to define it. Be a chapter in history that we will not have to shy away from, that we will not have to separate ourselves with.
This action will do more than grant recompense. It will make waves. It will pressure the legislature. It will further cement that the citizens of Mississippi are not united behind this face.
As for the League of the South, future action will only further alienate them, and it will only better illustrate our message. They provide history with a firm concept of who is wrong.
It is now up to you, the Associated Student Body, to represent the disgust and distain our generation feels for such sentiment. It will show Phil Bryant that young Mississippi voters are not to be ignored.
Please be on the right side of history.
