A prominent defense of the Confederate emblem in the Mississippi state flag is heritage. Many pro-flag supporters cite their ancestors’ sacrifice as a reason to support the symbol those soldiers fought under. I understand that.
David Turnage moved to Mississippi from South Carolina in 1840. His four sons— Albert, Preston, William and Fletcher— fought in the Civil War. They joined the Covington Rifles, a part of the seventh Mississippi infantry. Only three of them came home.
Albert, my three-times great-grandfather, bought a hundred acres of land after the war and built a house there. Where his house was is fewer than a 50 meters from where my home is. Six generations later, my family raises cattle where Albert raised cotton. Before he died, Albert helped build the Methodist church there, too— the same church I attended every Sunday of my young life and the church my family still attends today.
I know heritage. I know the deep ties that people have to this land and these people. But I don’t support the Confederate symbol as a representative of our state.
My family didn’t keep Albert’s Confederate flag. They didn’t hand it down from generation to generation to symbolize the death of his brother and sacrifices his family made. What Albert passed to his children and their children’s children down to me are his beliefs.
My mother and father raised me in the church for the same reason Albert raised his children there: because faith in God and love for all people are the only two things in this world that matter.
We don’t tell stories of he or his children died; we remember and emulate how they lived.
I came to the rally to remove the Confederate flag Friday expecting to see resistance. But when I heard them speaking with loud, harsh voices and saw the swastika and the Ku Klux Klan symbols on their arms, I wondered how it honored their families. How would their ancestors feel about this vulgar, ugly hate? How did they cite the same Bible that I do when I have been raised to believe there is no hatred pleasing to God?
If this malignancy is what the Confederate emblem represents, it cannot represent my family. I cannot bring anything but shame to Albert Turnage and his family by hating anyone. This is not my heritage. This is not my legacy.
I love Mississippi, and I love my home. But I hate the stigma that surrounds it. I hate that when my father went to pilot training, those around him assumed he was inherently prejudiced when the reality is my father is the most loving person that I know. The flag and all that it represents prolongs that unfair representation of my home and my family.
There are many reasons to take down the flag, and I can’t cover them all here. I can’t tell you how I feel that it’s unfair for black citizens of Mississippi to be represented by a symbol of hate and division because I would never stop writing.
But I can tell you that if your heritage is hatred, it has no place in our Mississippi.
Associated Student Body senators, don’t let this symbol be a part of our identity any longer.
