OPINION BY RACHEL LANCE | TIME
In late June, as many people across the United States took a renewed look at the nation’s history of racism, legislators in Mississippi voted yea on House Bill 1796, replacing the state flag. With that, theirs became the last state to remove a flying Confederate battle emblem from above their statehouse. The landslide vote, with 92 of 115 Representatives and 37 of 51 Senators opting for removal, was resoundingly heralded as a massive step forward for American equality.
However, even though the well-known design of a blue X with white stars criss-crossing a field of deep red, which featured heavily on Mississippi’s now-former state flag, often gets referred to as “the Confederate flag,” it wasn’t—and even though many people thought this was the last lingering official state symbol of the Confederacy, it isn’t.
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