Pro Mississippi flag rally held at capitol

With the brother of former Gov. Haley Barbour as keynote speaker, Magnolia State Heritage Campaign rallied Monday on the steps of the Mississippi Capitol to express support for the state flag.

Jeppie Barbour took a position that put him on the opposite side of his son.

After the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting last month, Henry Barbour, a national committeeman for the Republican Party, said the Mississippi state flag needed to be changed.

Jeppie Barbour said his son is wrong.

"First, the people voted on it 12 or 14 years ago and had a solid vote to keep it," he said. "Secondly, I don't see how the battle flag being on our state flag is offensive to anybody. It would be offensive to me if they took it off."

About 40 flag supporters attended the rally.

To kick off the event, a bagpiper played "Dixie" while many demonstrators waved Mississippi state flags and Confederate flags and held signs that read "keep the flag, change the speaker," a reference to Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn, who supports changing the flag.

Attending but not participating in the event was Kwame Kenyatta, who was chief administrative officer for the late Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. He said he believes Mississippi's state flag should be taken down.

"It represents a division of hate; it's a symbol of hate. It's not just about the heritage of the South," Kenyatta said. "This flag does not represent good will to man. It represents hatred. It represents the 'slave-ocracy' of the South, of the oppression of African people and native people in this country, and for that reason, I think that it should be taken down."

Very few people attending the rally shared Kenyatta's opinion.

Guest speaker William Flowers, vice chairman for the League of the South in Georgia, another Southern heritage preservation group, came from Atlanta to show his support.

"Recent events and political turmoil have changed my mind on many topics," Flowers said. "I cannot sit idly by and watch my Southern people attacked, their history and their heritage denigrated, and see their symbols relegated to the dark corner of a dusty museum where their children will never be able to pay them the reverence which they are rightfully due."

All of the speakers spoke on heritage, and some cited the media as being responsible for the flag controversy, for "stirring the pot."

"The pot needs to be stirred," said Jackson attorney Dennis Sweet IV, who said he believes the flag gives the whole state a bad image. "(The state flag) is used as a symbol of oppression and racism. It was used by the KKK and by other racist groups. It's similar to the swastika."

Joshua Herring attended the event to "gain knowledge and understanding of the flag." After a few of the speakers had addressed the crowd, Herring said, "I believe the flag should be changed to a magnolia flag because it better suits the people of Mississippi…(the speakers) say that the Confederate flag is a flag of heritage. Which heritage? Whose heritage?"

Magnolia State Heritage Campaign spokesman Chad Scott of West Point started organizing the campaign two weeks ago. He said he had encountered difficulties when anonymous people online started labeling the campaign's efforts as an attempt to form a "Klan rally." He said people had been misled about the campaign's intentions, that the campaign's rally had wrongfully been called a "hate" event.

"What we hoped to accomplish was to promote freedom that our Southern ancestors fought for," Scott said. "We wanted to promote the true history of the South and what the battle flag really means. And we also wanted our politicians to know that our battle flag is popular and that the will of the people is to keep it."

Contact Royce Swayze at (601) 961-7248 or rswayze@gannett.com. Follow @royce_swayze on Twitter.