'There's your flag, Phil': Activists burn Mississippi flag outside governor's mansion

Anna Wolfe | Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption Poor People's Campaign burns Mississippi, Confederate flags While chanting "no more hate in our state," members of the Poor People's Campaign burned a Mississippi flag and a Confederate battle flag outside the governor's mansion on Monday.

Poor People's Campaign organizers burned the Mississippi state flag outside the Governor's Mansion Monday afternoon.

Local organizer Valencia Robinson wrapped a Confederate flag around her neck while yelling "I can't breathe" — a nod to Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 after a New York City police officer put him in a choke hold on a city sidewalk.

"This flag is a symbol of hatred in the state of Mississippi," she said.

One of the demonstrators crafted the Confederate battle emblem for the occasion. Robinson held the flag from a thin pole while another organizer took a blue long-reach butane lighter, held it to the flag, and set it ablaze. The Governor's Mansion was visible through the flame.

Another organizer held the Mississippi state flag, which also contains the Confederate battle emblem, into the flame, before the pile of cloth fell to the concrete. It smoldered while protesters of different ages and races laughed, cheered, and chanted, "No hate in our state."

The Poor People's Campaign gathered Monday, for the sixth week in a row, to protest white supremacy and racial inequity. The nation-wide demonstration is modeled after the 1968 anti-poverty campaign of the same name organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

While Poor People's Campaign demonstrations in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and other states in recent weeks led to arrests, gatherings in Mississippi — the poorest state with one of the toughest racial pasts — have remained relatively tame.

The Monday demonstration attracted no counter-protesters, but one construction worker across the street did express dismay. "You're going to light it on fire?" he asked.

"This is an unfortunate instance of a group exercising their rights in a completely disrespectful and unproductive manner," Gov. Phil Bryant said in a statement after the demonstration. "There are better ways to bring attention to one's opinions than burning the state of Mississippi flag on a public street corner."

Mississippi has the highest rate of poverty — over 20 percent total and 34 percent of children — and lowest median household income — less than $42,000 — of any state.

This disproportionately affects African-American children in the state, almost half of whom live in poverty compared to 17 percent of white children.

"We have been organizing. We have been rallying. We have been doing civil disobedience because we know that a change is going to come," said Jackson resident and a Poor People's Campaign national organizer Danielle Holmes. "Our work is not in vain here. This is the dawn of a new day. We send word to the governor. To the policy makers. No more. We will not be silenced anymore."

Mississippi also has the lowest life expectancy and highest rate of infant mortality in the nation. Mississippi leaders chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to those living below 138 percent of the poverty line, many of whom fall into a health insurance coverage gap.

Mississippi also approved the lowest number of new applications — just 1.42 percent — for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families public assistance program in 2016. While the state's caseload for TANF decreased 48 percent between 2006 and 2015, the rate of poverty remained unchanged, hovering around 21 percent.

At the rally before the flag burning, demonstrators railed against capitalism for, they said, its role in perpetuating white supremacy.

Ernest Whitfield, a worker at the Nissan plant in Canton and Poor People's Campaign organizer, participated Monday. Whitfield helped lead the fight for worker representation inside the manufacturing plant last summer, but the workers voted not to unionize.

He called big business a "beast."

"They want to keep profits high and labor costs minuscule. That's what we're fighting, that ideology that in Mississippi, you can marginalize people because it's Mississippi," Whitfield said. "The Mississippi citizen needs to pay attention that the dollars that are assisting these companies to come here are coming out of your pocket. One, as just a general citizen, what benefits are you getting? Two, if you're a citizen that works for these companies, what benefits are you getting? You have to be mindful that you're not being taken advantage of.

"It's fantastic that the corporations move here. It's great, but you can't come with the attitude that we're going to minimize benefits to the people because it's Mississippi," Whitfield said.

The demonstration contained little regarding specific legislation protesters would like to see enacted to combat persistent poverty across the state. One speaker criticized the state's efforts to introduce privatization in education. Organizers also said they support long-debated policies such as expanding Medicaid and fully funding public schools.

But first, locals said they start with a call to remove the Confederate battle emblem — which Holmes said is "not a flag that preserves heritage" — from the state flag.

Mississippi Rising Coalition, a non-profit pushing to replace the flag, also joined in protest Monday.

"There's your flag, Phil," Mississippi Rising Coalition founder Lea Campbell yelled through the mansion fence, motioning over the burning pile.

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