More than 800 people have signed a petition created Tuesday to put the Mississippi flag back up in downtown Juneau, just days after it was removed over its Confederate imagery.
The new, unpunctuated, seven-word petition on change.org says, “Put back up the Mississippi state flag.”
It’s addressed to the City and Borough of Juneau, which doesn’t control the all-flags display on Egan Drive and hasn’t officially weighed in on the controversy.
“The city employees don’t put those flags up, there are no city vehicles, they’re not city poles, it’s not even a city right of way,” Juneau Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl said. “So the Friends of the Flags group has not gotten any instructions, directions or push from the Assembly that I’m aware of,” Kiehl said.
Community member Gary Durling started the petition after about 200 people last week successfully petitioned to replace Mississippi’s official state flag with its first official flag, the Magnolia flag.
Durling doesn’t think that group should make the decision for all of Juneau.
“I feel that a lot of groups in this town try to push their ideas on others in this town, and it divides us,” he said.
Durling acknowledges the different sides of the issue, but says Mississippi’s official flag should fly downtown.
“All of a sudden it becomes an issue, and if you like the flag you’re racist or promoting slavery,” Durling said.
For Durling, who grew up in Juneau, the flag controversy is a part of a city that’s changing. He says it worries him a little. Now that his petition has garnered so much attention, Durling is unsure what he will do moving forward.
Juneau college student Amos Kissel is a supporter. While he acknowledges the flag’s association with racism, he says it’s also a part of people’s heritage.
“I understand people are offended by the Confederate flag, and I respect that and value their opinion. But I know there’s also people that are good and value the Confederate flag as a part of their history and it’s not just about racism and slavery,” Kissel said.
Assemblyman Kiehl says he recently spot-checked the supporters of the new petition and says the majority of them are locals.
“Eighty or 90 percent of the folks live in Juneau, and probably 90 percent of those are registered voters. So it’s clearly something folks in Juneau are starting to think about,” Kiehl said.
The June 17 racially motivated massacre of church parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina, sparked a national conversation about the Confederate and Mississippi flags — and in the Magnolia state itself.
So far, five Mississippi cities have removed the flag from their municipal properties. Clarksdale is one of them.
Clarksdale Mayor Bill Luckett says he wishes he removed the state flag sooner. For him, the Charleston massacre was the tipping point.
“They call it heritage, I call it history. It’s not most peoples’ history, at least not around Clarksdale, Mississippi,” Luckett said.
He says the flag is a reminder of a darker time in America.
“That is a reminder to many people of oppression, suppression, slavery, divisiveness, it just carries a lot of negative connotations with it,” Luckett said.
Luckett hopes that the increased attention to the issue will encourage the Mississippi lawmakers to change the flag.
“Sometimes you need to stand out from the crowd and be different if it’s for the right reason, but we stand out and we’re different from most states for the wrong reason,” he said.
The Columbus city council recently voted unanimously to remove the flag, becoming the fifth city in Mississippi to do so. Councilman Charlie Box voted on the issue.
“I just felt like anything that divisive—it’s a piece of cloth—and to some it means so much, but I just feel like it’s really time to move forward,” Box said.
Box says his constituents are split down the middle.
If the change.org petition succeeds at reversing the Friends of the Flags decision, supporters in Juneau will need to pay for a replacement flag, installation equipment and a permit from the Department of Transportation.
The original Mississippi flag was donated to the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. Once collections are logged, the museum usually doesn’t give them back.
Friends of the Flag organizer Judy Ripley, who allowed the original flag replacement, did so because of the hateful associations with the flag. Although she would not comment on the new petition, she said she was not surprised.
