The government bodies from federal to local have taken steps to remove Confederate flags from the public space in wake of the Charleston, South Carolina shooting.
This week the federal House of Representatives has debated on its vote on an added proposal by Representative Jared Huffman (D-California) within measure funding of the National Park Service to prohibit display of Confederate flags at federal cemeteries. Representative Steve Palazzo (R-Mississippi) called for a revote on the measure.
Associated Press reports Palazzo’s statement: “I strongly oppose the inclusion of this amendment, which was slipped into the bill in the dead of the night with no debate. Congress cannot simply rewrite history and strip the Confederate flag from existence. Members of Congress from New York and California cannot wipe away 150 years of Southern history with a sleight-of-hand tactics.”
The Vicksburg National Military Park is included in this measure, but the park only has two Confederate soldiers aside from the 17,000 Union soldiers buried there. Those two Confederate soldiers, Private Reuben White from 19th Texas Infantry Regiment and Sergeant Charles B. Brantley from 12th Arkansas Sharpshooters Battalion, were mistakenly buried in section B of the cemetery in 1860s, according to its website.
Its website states: “Confederate dead from the Vicksburg campaign originally buried behind Confederate lines, have now been re-interred in the Vicksburg City Cemetery (Cedar Hill Cemetery), in an area called “Soldiers’ Rest.” Approximately 5,000 Confederates have been re-interred there, of which 1,600 are identified.”
Meanwhile, Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) has pushed the House Administration Committee to remove all images of the Confederate battle flag from House office buildings and chamber in Washington D.C. since June 23.
Yesterday, he issued a statement on his site regarding a letter he sent to Chairwoman Candice Miller and ranking member Robert Brady of the House Administration Committee on the presence of Confederate imagery in Washington D.C.
Thompson said, “Today, I sent a letter to Chairwoman Candice Miller and Ranking Member Robert Brady of the Committee on House Administration urging them both to take swift action on the privileged resolution that I introduced to take down symbols of the confederate battle flag including the imagery in the Mississippi state flag.”
“After my resolution was voted into the Committee on House Administration before the most recent recess, my Republican colleagues hoped that the issue would just fade away but I am calling for immediate hearings and/or committee action on the resolution. In my letter to the committee, I encouraged my colleagues to follow up on the nice things they said on the House floor during the debate and take real action,” he said in the statement.
Nancy Peilosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives and current minority leader of the House of Representatives, wrote a resolution to remove any Confederate battle flag symbolism from the U.S. capitol.
Her resolution reads: “That the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall remove any State flag containing any portion of the Confederate battle flag, other than a flag displayed by the office of a Member of the House, from any area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office building, and shall donate any such flag to the Library of Congress.”
This resolution affects the presence of the Mississippi state flag in the U.S. Capitol.
Some governmental bodies in Mississippi have also taken such actions. Last Thursday, Bill Luckett, mayor of Clarksdale, removed the state flag from the city hall.
Luckett said, “I think it’s hight time we did it. It’s an offensive symbol and I don’t believe in offending people.”
He worked in conjunction with Morgan Freeman when the previous flag vote came about. He said voters were very apprehensive about the flag then, and they’re very apprehensive about the flag now.
“Removing the flag [from City Hall] is the right thing to do. This decision ties in with Dan Jones’ decision to remove the offensive symbols from the university. I was proud of the administration’s bold move to go through with that, and I had that in mind when we decided to remove the flag [from City Hall]” he said.
Hattiesburg already conducted similiar actions on June 26, when its mayor, Johnny Dupree, ordered the removal of the state flag from any city-owned buildings.
Oxford’s mayor, George “Pat” Patterson, wrote an open letter last month in favor of changing the state flag.
Both Mississippian U.S. Senators Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker have stated their desire to change the state flag’s design, but Governor Phil Bryant said he respects the voters’ decision on the flag design in the 2001 election but that the issue can be revisited again by the voters.
Correction: Nancy Peilosi’s job position was corrected.
Callie Daniels Bryant is the senior managing editor of HottyToddy.com. She can be reached at callie.daniels@hottytoddy.com.
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