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Initially, Mississippians flew the Bonnie Blue Flag
as the Mississippi flag, an
1810 flag depicting a single white star on a blue field.
Within a couple of weeks however, on January 26, 1861, the
Mississippi secession convention adopted an official
Mississippi flag. Referred to as "The Magnolia Flag" the
first official Mississippi flag depicted a Magnolia tree on a
white field. This Mississippi flag also incorporated the
Bonnie Blue image in the canton corner. Though Mississippi
flew the flags of the Confederate States of America from 1861
to 1865, the Magnolia Mississippi flag actually remained the "official"
Mississippi flag for 33 years. In February, 1894, the current
Mississippi flag was adopted by the Mississippi legislature.
During the Civil War
years, 1861 to 1865, Mississippi flew the official flags of
the Confederate States: the Stars and Bars in 1861, the
Stainless Banner in 1863. Near the end of the war, Jefferson
Davis signed a bill approving a design for a third official
Mississippi flag. It is not certain if this third Mississippi
flag design,
similar to the Stainless Banner but with a red vertical bar on
the outer half of the white field, was ever raised above
Mississippi.
In 1894, Mississippi
adopted the present Mississippi flag, replacing the Magnolia
Mississippi flag adopted in 1861. The new Mississippi flag consists of a
"union square" in the canton corner and a field divided into
three bars of equal width; the top one blue, the middle bar
white and the bottom bar, extending the entire width of the
Mississippi flag, red. The official wording of the legislation
adopting this official state Mississippi flag is quite
interesting. The Confederate Battle Flag in the canton corner
is referred to as the "union square." The thirteen white stars
on the cross(saltire) are "...corresponding with the number of
the original States of the Union;" rather than the thirteen
states of the Confederate States of America. The field of the
Mississippi flag consists of the same three bars of the the
first Confederate flag, the Stars and Bars, but the top stripe
of the Mississippi flag, is blue. These three bars represent the "...national colors."
On January 12, 2001, the
Governor of Mississippi signed House Bill 524:
AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR A STATEWIDE SPECIAL ELECTION FOR
THE PURPOSE OF SELECTING THE OFFICIAL Mississippi flag; TO SET THE DATE OF APRIL 17, 2001, FOR THE
STATEWIDE SPECIAL ELECTION; TO ALLOW THE ELECTORATE TO VOTE
FOR ONE OF TWO FLAG DESIGNS; TO SPECIFY THAT ONE OF THE
DESIGNS SHALL BE THE 1894 Mississippi flag DESIGN AND THAT THE OTHER
SHALL BE A PROPOSED NEW DESIGN; ....
This bill was
precipitated by a series of design proposals intended to
remove the representation of the Confederate Battle Flag from
the canton corner of the current Mississippi flag. Some
Mississippians were offended by the official Mississippi flag
design and proposed a new design they thought would be more
acceptable to the entire populace of the state. The
legislature and the Governor decided to put an end to the
controversy over the Mississippi flag and passed a law that
would put the design of the Mississippi Flag to a vote. This
vote would determine whether the Mississippi flag that had
flown over Mississippi for 107 years would continue to fly
over the state or whether a new design would be raised over
the state capitol. The vote was scheduled for April 17, 2001.
The new Mississippi flag
design was similar to the 1894 design except that the canton
corner color was changed from red to blue and the
representation of the Confederate Battle Flag was replaced
with 19 small white stars surrounding one large white star.
When all the votes were
counted the message was clear. The 107 year old Mississippi
Flag would continue to fly over the state. The vote, nearly
2-1, sent a clear message that Mississippians valued the
historic symbolism of the 1894 Mississippi flag.
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