No American state changed its flag more consequentially this century than Mississippi. For 126 years its banner carried the Confederate battle emblem, the last state flag in the country to do so. In the space of six months in 2020, the legislature retired it, a commission picked a magnolia in its place, and voters ratified the choice by nearly three to one. The result, official since January 11, 2021, is the New Magnolia: a white blossom on a deep blue band, ringed by stars, over the words "In God We Trust."
The 1894 flag and the long argument
Mississippi adopted its previous flag in 1894, during the era when the state was writing white supremacy into its constitution. The design put the Confederate battle emblem, thirteen white stars on a blue saltire over red, in the canton, with three horizontal bars of blue, white, and red behind it.
The argument over the emblem ran for decades. In 2001, the question went to a statewide vote: keep the 1894 flag or adopt a replacement with a canton of stars. Voters kept the old flag, 64 percent to 36. After the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when South Carolina removed the battle flag from its capitol grounds, pressure returned. Several Mississippi cities and all eight of the state's public universities stopped flying the state flag. The legislature did not move.
June 2020
What changed in 2020 was the combination of the George Floyd protests and sports. As demonstrations spread that June, the NCAA and the Southeastern Conference announced they would keep championship events out of Mississippi while the flag flew, a serious threat in a state where college athletics carries real political weight. Business groups, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, and a run of high-profile coaches lined up behind a change.
On June 28, 2020, both chambers passed House Bill 1796 by wide margins, and Governor Tate Reeves signed it two days later. The 1894 flag was retired immediately; it flew over the Capitol for the last time on July 1 and was delivered to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The bill set the terms for a successor: a nine-member commission would pick one design to put before voters that November, it had to include "In God We Trust," and it could not include the Confederate battle emblem.
The New Magnolia
The commission received nearly 3,000 public submissions and narrowed them through the summer, with the final round coming down to the magnolia design and a "Great River" shield. In September 2020 it chose the New Magnolia, a design led by Rocky Vaughan, a graphic designer from Ackerman, with contributions from Sue Anna Joe, Kara Giles, and Dominique Pugh, and a star element by Micah Whitson.
The layout is a vertical triband with unequal bars: red on the outside, then narrow gold stripes, then a wide dark blue center band (a Canadian pale, in flag terminology). The magnolia, the state flower and the source of Mississippi's nickname, sits at the center in white with a gold stamen. Around it run twenty white stars, one for each state in the Union when Mississippi joined in 1817. At the top of the ring is a single gold star built from diamond shapes drawn from Choctaw tradition, included to honor the Native American tribes of the land that became Mississippi. "IN GOD WE TRUST" appears on the blue band beneath the flower.
There is an older echo here. Mississippi's first state flag, flown from 1861 to 1865, was the original Magnolia Flag, a magnolia tree on a white field with a blue canton carrying a single white star. The 2020 commission's choice put the state's flower back where its nineteenth-century secession-era flag had first placed it, minus the secession.
The vote and after
Ballot Measure 3 appeared on the November 3, 2020 general election ballot: yes or no on the commission's design. It passed with 73 percent, a striking reversal of the 2001 result. The legislature enacted the design in January, and Reeves signed it on January 11, 2021, the same day the new flag first flew over the Capitol.
The change was not universally loved. Some voters wanted the old flag on the ballot as an option; it never was, by design. Others objected to the mandated religious motto. But the margin settled the question in a way the 2001 vote had not, and the rollout afterward was fast. The New Magnolia now flies at every public building that had quietly taken the old flag down, which by 2020 was most of them.
Among recent American flag redesigns, Mississippi's is generally counted a success: a limited palette, a single bold emblem, readable at distance, and unlike its predecessor, a flag every public institution in the state is willing to fly.
References
[1] Wikipedia, "Flag of Mississippi." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Mississippi
[2] Mississippi Department of Archives and History, "State Flag Commission Picks New Magnolia Flag for November Ballot" (September 2020). https://www.mdah.ms.gov/news/state-flag-commission-picks-new-magnolia-flag-november-ballot
[3] CNN, "Mississippi Ballot Measure 3: Voters approve magnolia design as new state flag" (November 3, 2020). https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/03/politics/mississippi-new-state-flag-ballot-question/index.html
[4] CNN, "Mississippi ratifies and raises its new state flag over the state Capitol for the first time" (January 12, 2021). https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/mississippi-new-state-flag-flown/
[5] Smithsonian Magazine, "Mississippi Voters Approve New Design to Replace Confederate-Themed State Flag" (November 2020). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mississippi-will-replace-its-confederate-themed-state-flag-180976209/
[6] NBC News, "Mississippi voters decide to replace Confederate-themed state flag" (November 2020). https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/mississippi-voters-decide-replace-confederate-themed-state-flag-n1246244