By
The Associated Press
RAYMOND, Miss. - Two-thirds of Mississippians say they prefer the current state flag over a new design that removes the Confederate battle flag from the top corner, according to a poll about an issue voters will decide in a week.
The poll - commissioned by The Associated Press, The Commercial Dispatch of Columbus, Emmerich Newspapers, The Sun Herald of Gulfport-Biloxi and WTVA-TV of Tupelo - shows opinions remain sharply divided along racial lines.
In the central Mississippi town of Raymond, a sleepy hamlet torn apart by a bloody Civil War battle in 1863, Rebecca Willhite and the Rev. Illiad Kelly personify the division the flag debate has rekindled.
Willhite, a white beauty shop owner, says she sees no reason to change the flag she has admired all her 46 years. She said Mississippi has made plenty of social changes in recent decades. "I grew up in Mississippi, it's just the flag," Willhite said with a shrug.
Kelly, a 32-year-old black minister, says it's time to change a flag he says has never represented blacks. He believes most white people aren't racist, but he wishes people of all races would see the redemptive value of a banner that could unify rather than divide. "The flag now is a stigma of bad memories," he said.
In an April 17 referendum, Mississippi voters will choose between the 1894 flag, with its Confederate battle emblem in the top corner, and a new flag that replaces that corner's design with 20 white stars on a blue square, representing Mississippi as the 20th state.
The key question put to those surveyed for the poll was, "Do you think Mississippi should change its state flag to remove the portion with the Confederate flag?"
The poll found 66 percent of those surveyed favored keeping the old flag. Only 22 percent said they want a new flag with the Confederate symbol removed. About one in 10 said they didn't know or weren't sure.
Just over half the blacks surveyed said they want a flag with the Confederate emblem removed, but almost three in 10 said they did not. Four of five whites said they favored the current flag while one in 10 wanted to change.
Mississippi's population is about 61 percent white and 36 percent black, with small percentages of Hispanics, Native Americans and other groups.
The emotional hold that the Rebel flag and its history has on the state is suggested by sharp differences when the flag question was asked a different way in late January and early February in a poll commissioned by The Clarion-Ledger.
When people were asked in that poll whether they wanted to "keep the old flag or replace it with the new flag," with no mention of the Confederate symbol, just over half, 55 percent, said keep the old, while 34 percent said replace it with a new flag.
In the new poll, seven in 10 said they see the Confederate flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol of racism. The poll of 1,012 adults was taken March 17-21 by Mississippi State University's Social Science Research Center and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Mississippi stands alone with the Confederate battle emblem as the centerpiece of its banner. Georgia legislators in January reduced the Confederate emblem in that state's flag, while South Carolina last year removed a freestanding Rebel flag from atop its capitol.
Business, education and religious groups are using phone banks and direct mail to promote a new flag. Sons of Confederate Veterans and others are posting yard signs and bumper stickers to appeal for the 1894 banner.
Kelly says he'll speak about the issue from the pulpit Easter Sunday, two days before the election.
"Easter represents the resurrection of Christ," Kelly said. "If we can revive ... our state through the creation of a new flag, that would actually bring about the rebirth in the heart of man."
Kelly's church, with a predominantly black congregation of 250, sits down a narrow road from a cemetery with 140 austere white marble markers for Confederate soldiers killed in the May 12, 1863, Battle of Raymond.
Willhite's blue Victorian cottage backs up to woods leading to the cemetery. She flies Mississippi and Confederate flags in her neatly groomed back yard.
"I don't see like it's anything wrong as far as it being racist like they say," Willhite said as she stood by the state flag. "A black friend of mine just left here. He didn't say anything about it."
