Mississippi retires its rebel-themed former flag to museum

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi officials held a ceremony Wednesday to retire the former state flag and send it to a history museum, a day after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a law removing official status from the last state banner in the U.S. that included the Confederate battle emblem.

“We have much to be proud of and much to reckon with,” House Speaker Philip Gunn said during the ceremony. “This flag has flown over our best and our worst. Some flew it over their bravery to defend their homeland. And for others, it’s been a shadow over their struggle to be free.”

Mississippi faced increasing pressure in recent weeks to change its 126-year-old flag since protests against racial injustice have focused attention on Confederate symbols.

A broad coalition of legislators on Sunday passed the landmark legislation to change the flag, capping a weekend of emotional debate and decades of effort by Black lawmakers and others who see the rebel emblem as a symbol of hatred and racism.

The new law requires a ceremony for the "prompt, dignified and respectful removal" of the banner.

Three flags that have flown over or in front of the Capitol were lowered Wednesday as dozens of people watched on the lawn or from open windows inside the building. Honor guard members from the National Guard and the Mississippi Highway Patrol presented them to Gunn, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and state Department of Archives and History director Katie Blount. Police cars with flashing blue lights escorted a vehicle that took the officials, and the flags, to the nearby Museum of Mississippi History. The museum will put one flag in an exhibit and two into archives.

Mississippi will be without a flag for at least a few months. A commission will design a new one that cannot include the Confederate symbol and must have the words “In...