July 1, 2015
Jere Nash, co-author with Andy Taggart of "Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2006," posted this information about the vote to change the state flag in 2001. It is from their book, and this is his verbatim post, with his permission, about the people who turned out to vote:
"As debate continues about what to do with the Mississippi Flag, I wanted to highlight some of the information Andy and I included in our 2006 book about the April 17, 2001 special flag election. More Mississippians went to the polls that day than voted in the 1999 governor’s election. The 1894 flag prevailed over the alternative new flag by 494,323 votes to 273,359. Of the 1,311 majority white precincts in the state at the time, only 43 supported the new flag. Of those precincts, eighteen were in the Jackson metro area and twelve were in university towns. According to the 2000 Census there were 43 precincts with no African American residents, and the margin in those precincts in favor of the 1894 Flag was 5,887 to 221, or 96.4 percent. In the 408 precincts which had 50 or fewer African Americans, the margin in favor of the 1894 Flag was 89,112 to 8,014, or 91.8 percent. Only two precincts at the time had no white residents. The margin in favor of the new flag in those two precincts was 421 to 5, or 98.8 percent. In the 94 precincts with 50 or fewer white residents, the margin in favor of the new flag was 23,098 to 1,115, or 95.4 percent. Our analysis of all the precincts showed that 90 percent of white voters supported the 1894 flag and 95 percent of black voters supported the new flag design."
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