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This is part five in a five-part series about Philip Gunn’s influence in changing the Mississippi state flag. Read the full series here.

State Rep. Manly Barton walked into Speaker of the House Philip Gunn’s office on June 25, 2020, for what he knew would be a difficult conversation.

With the clock ticking on the 2020 legislative session, Gunn was sprinting to whip the necessary votes to suspend the rules to change the state flag, the last in the nation featuring the Confederate battle emblem. Barton, the 72-year-old Jackson County Republican who was in his eighth year in office, was among the final holdouts.

Because lawmakers were in session in June following COVID-19 delays, general bill deadlines had long passed. Gunn needed about 40 Republican votes to join the 44 Democrats to suspend the rules to even get to the bill that would change the flag. Once House leaders cleared the heftier rules suspension threshold, they knew the simple majority vote to change the flag would sail through.

On Monday of that final week, Gunn had counted just 14 of the 40 necessary Republican votes. But in just three days, as pressure outside the Capitol had reached a fever pitch, Gunn and his allies had whipped about 35 Republican votes.

“Talk about all the things that had to come together, all the House members who ended up voting with us… Manly Barton is the one that inspires me the most,” Gunn told Mississippi Today.

Like most rural district Republicans, Barton had assured his district’s constituents for years that he would not vote to change the flag. Barton’s stance ran so deep that his main campaign placard featured a photo of him while serving in Vietnam. Draped in the background of the photo was the old Mississippi state flag.

Gunn, for years the most prominent state Republican who had publicly called for a new flag, was closer than he’d ever been to having the votes to get there. He needed Barton, and he believed he would flip.

“He stood behind that leather chair,” Gunn recalled, pointing across his office. “I said, ‘Manly, I need your vote.’ He said, ‘Mr. Speaker, I just can’t do it. I just can’t do it.’

“I said to him, ‘All I need is for you to vote to suspend the rules, you don’t have to vote to change the flag when the separate bill comes up.’ He moaned and groaned and said, ‘I just can’t do it.’ That went on for about 10 minutes, and I talked to him about the legacy he’d be leaving, about how his children and grandchildren would remember this moment.”

Barton left the office without giving Gunn a hard commitment.

Later that night, Gunn was at dinner with a group of House Republicans when Barton approached his table, tapped him on the shoulder and asked to speak with him privately. For about 45 minutes, Barton explained to Gunn how he felt about the flag, and he expressed fear that he couldn’t get reelected in his majority-white rural district if he voted to change the flag.

“He wanted to do the right thing. He’d struggled with it all day, so he called his wife,” Gunn recalled. “She asked him, ‘Are you going to be able to look at yourself in the mirror the day after this vote and be proud of what you’ve done?’ He looked at me and said, ‘I know the answer to that. You know, I gotta do the right thing. Not only will I vote to suspend the rules, I’m going to vote to change the flag.’”

There are several similar stories from the final hours before the vote. To this day, Gunn won’t take credit for Barton or any of the other flips of House holdouts. He insists that their families or maybe even God moved them, and that statements from business, religious and sports leaders gave them enough political cover to get there.

“I just gave them the opportunity,” Gunn said. “I brought them in here one by one. I said, ‘Where are you? Don’t you want to be on the right side of history here? People will forever look back on this moment.’ And, you know, before too long, the votes started coming together.”

But several House members told Mississippi Today they fully credit Gunn for his consistent message about the legacy they would all be leaving and getting the key holdouts on board —.an effort that began in an unplanned June 11 Republican caucus speech.

“The practical reality is that the flag doesn’t change without (Gunn’s) leadership,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader. “When we first came to him in early June with the desire to try, he went to work. If he doesn’t take that initiative and start telling his caucus how important it was, this doesn’t happen. That leadership didn’t come from Tate Reeves or Delbert Hosemann, it came from Philip Gunn.”

When Gunn left that dinner on Thursday, June 25, he and his leadership team felt they had received enough verbal commitments to meet the 81-vote threshold needed to suspend the rules and take up the flag bill.

But three main questions remained: What, exactly, would the bill look like? How many House members did they really have on board? Did the Senate have enough votes to suspend its rules if the House did its part?

House and Senate leaders negotiated the contents of the bill itself for at least four days, all the way up to the morning of June 28, when the House voted to suspend the rules. Gunn, along with his trusted confidants Rep. Jason White and Rep. Trey Lamar, had talked at least a dozen times that final week with Hosemann and Senate chairmen Sen. Briggs Hopson and Sen. Josh Harkins about the details of the bill.

Hosemann, who had just a couple days before still not supported lawmakers making the change themselves, had agreed to legislative change as long as the new flag had the words “In God We Trust” on it. Gunn, too, insisted that phrase make the final bill. Many lawmakers expressed to reporters that week they felt that the slogan would provide some political cover for them to vote for the change.

“Who would vote against God on the ballot?” a Senate Republican chairman quipped to a Mississippi Today reporter on the day of the final vote.

After a couple days of back-and-forth, House and Senate leaders decided the bill would feature three main elements: It would create a commission to select a new flag design (including the words “In God We Trust”), it would require that the commission report back to legislators and it would eliminate the Confederate battle emblem from consideration.

The House and Senate leaders were careful not to put the contents of the bill on paper because they didn’t want the details to leak to the press and give the public or even some on-the-fence lawmakers time to poke holes in the plan.

The next question to answer was how many House members were on board. On the evening of Friday, June 26, Gunn and his leadership team thought they had 84 votes — more than enough to suspend the rules and later pass a veto-proof flag bill. But before Gunn called the vote, he had to be sure.

“I took my caucus, and I divided it into five groups,” Gunn said. He assigned a handful of members to Rep. Jason White, another group to his chief of staff Trey Dellinger, another group to his policy director TJ Taylor, and another group to his former chief of staff Nathan Wells. Gunn took the final group himself.

“I told them to call every member and ask for three things,” Gunn said. “First, you will vote to suspend the rules. Second, you will vote against any floor amendments offered. Third, you will vote to change the flag. I needed them to answer all three in the affirmative. So we spent a couple hours making those calls, and the number was dead on. We had 84 votes.”

Late that week, as Gunn focused on the House, he also had to keep an eye on the Senate. If he garnered enough House votes to suspend the rules and change the flag, he wanted to be sure the Senate would follow suit. Otherwise, the effort would have been for naught.

“You can’t overlook the effort given by a number of young lobbyists who were working mostly on senators,” Gunn said. “There was a group of 10 or 12 lobbyists — all of them of the younger generation that frankly was always more supportive of the change. They weren’t paid by anybody. They just decided to give up their time to work the issue because they thought it was the right thing to do.”

Meanwhile, White and Lamar were in constant communication with Hopson and Harkins, the Senate leaders. The young lobbyists and the Senate leaders communicated to Gunn on the night of Friday, June 26, that the Senate would make their number.

On the morning of Saturday, June 27, the Capitol was buzzing. Mississippi Today reported the night before that the House had their votes and would suspend the rules to consider the flag bill on Saturday.

Many lawmakers brought their families to the building for the historic day. Everyday Mississippians lined up outside the House gallery in hopes of being in the chamber when the vote was cast. Reporters from around the South and the nation were present to document the moment.

Gunn gaveled in the House that morning, but neither the rules suspension nor the flag bill were on the calendar. Leaders on both sides of the building remained eerily quiet all morning. The suspense spurred questions about whether something had happened overnight.

Behind the scenes, though, leaders were still hammering out the details of the bill itself, legislative attorneys were ensuring the language was air-tight, and the Senate was still counting its votes. Gunn was adamant that the House would not take up the resolution until he got a verbal commitment from Senate leaders that they had their number.

Gunn received that confirmation of the Senate votes around noon, and he quickly called a House Republican caucus meeting on the second floor. He informed his members that both chambers had the votes, and they would soon go back upstairs to take the procedural vote.

Several Republicans who opposed the flag change loudly voiced their opinions in that meeting, but there was no changing minds at that point.

Gunn, White and Lamar left the caucus meeting, walked into the speaker’s office and closed the door. They had decided a couple days before that White, as House pro tem and someone who worked hard to whip the votes, would handle the bill on the floor. White had been rehearsing his speech since Friday night.

“I remember working on all that and, uh, it was very emotional. I think all of us understood the weight of the moment,” Gunn said of the final few seconds before they walked onto the House floor for the rules suspension vote. “I recall as we were in the office just working on our speeches, how choked up we all got just contemplating that moment.”

Gunn had Rep. Lee Yancey, a Republican from Rankin County, come into his office to pray for the small group before they walked to the House floor for the vote.

On the floor, White delivered what some consider one of the best speeches given on the floor of the Mississippi House of Representatives. Many of his colleagues and visitors in the gallery openly wept.

Then came the moment so many people had been waiting so long for. The final vote on the House rules suspension was actually one vote better than Gunn counted the night before: 85 yeas, 35 nays. 

House members applauded for several minutes. Cheers echoed through the halls of the Capitol. Visitors hugged and wiped tears from their faces.

A couple hours later, the Senate followed suit, voting to suspend its rules to consider the bill. The biggest procedural hurdles had been overcome, and everyone knew the flag would be changed the very next day.

As the House votes on the rules suspension were tallied, Gunn held back tears from the speaker’s podium.

“It’s hard to describe,” Gunn said when asked about his feelings during that moment. “This had been a long journey. Five years to the month of being out front and advocating for this, such a long time that nobody had really bought in. You just feel like it’s all been worth it because we’ve now turned a corner in the history of our state. The magnitude of that moment, I don’t think any of us even realized it at the time.”

The next day, on June 28, the House passed the bill that actually changed the flag — the historic event but just a formality after Saturday’s rules suspension. Nine House Republicans who had voted against suspending the rules on Saturday actually voted to change the flag on Sunday — a change of heart certainly prompted by the overwhelmingly positive press the state had received the day before. The Senate passed its flag bill a few minutes later on June 28.

The state flag that had flown over Mississippi for 126 years had been furled for good.

“Just to think that flag will be flying long after we’re all gone, both from the Legislature and this life, it was just a momentous occasion,” Gunn said in the interview earlier this year. “Everybody involved in the process can take pride in the fact that they played a role in that history and put forward an image that’s positive.”

For five years, Gunn was on a limb in his party. He remained patient, even while taking criticism from several political factions, and he watched carefully for the right moment to move. 

When that moment came in June 2020, as thousands of Mississippians and millions of Americans protested racial inequality, Gunn challenged his fellow Republicans to think about their neighbors, the future of the state and their own individual legacies. He coordinated critical meetings and asked religious, university and sports leaders to get involved at key inflection points. He strategically pieced together the legislative coalition necessary to make the change based on the relationships he’d built over the past several months and years.

After the final vote on June 28, Gunn called a press conference outside the House chamber and invited several lawmakers — Republicans and Democrats alike — to give speeches. Several lawmakers got choked up as they talked about the significance of the vote and the moment.

But when it came time for Gunn to speak, he gave credit for the change to everyone but himself.

The post Philip Gunn whips the final House votes to change the state flag appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Last year, DeeDee Baldwin, a history research librarian at Mississippi State University, saw firsthand how her community came together to keep each other safe during the pandemic.

The faculty asked for a classroom mask mandate, the provost made it happen. It seemed to Baldwin like the custodial staff were always on campus. Professors worked with students who missed assignments or couldn’t come to class. 

“Everybody from the leadership on down really came together to do their best with a bad situation,” Baldwin said. “I think the last year really showed us the importance of working together and remembering that we live in a society and we depend on each other.” 

That is why Baldwin was alarmed when, in late April, she received a notice from the Office of Public Affairs that MSU would be lifting the mask mandate for some indoor locations on campus starting in May. Social distancing requirements would be relaxed by 75%. 

In a Facebook group, other faculty at MSU also questioned the logic of relaxing these safety guidelines with Mississippi’s vaccination rate lagging behind the rest of the country and murmurings of rapidly spreading Delta variant. Then one of Baldwin’s colleagues, Andrea Spain, an English professor at MSU, suggested they speak up. 

So they did. Along with two colleagues, Baldwin and Spain put together a letter urging the Institutions of Higher Learning to require the COVID-19 vaccine for all students at Mississippi’s eight public universities this fall. Since students comprise the majority of the campus population, they view this as the quickest way to reach herd immunity and ensure that the most vulnerable people in the community are protected. 

“We must protect all members of the university community,” the letter reads, “especially those who cannot be vaccinated due to medical conditions and/or are immunocompromised.”

The letter also asks that universities in Mississippi not cease their mask mandates and social distancing until a majority of the campus is vaccinated. 

“I keep hearing people say, ‘Oh it’s a personal decision,’” to get vaccinated, Baldwin said, “and I’m like, no it’s not. This affects other people. It’s not just a personal decision; it’s a community decision.” 

The letter has been live for over a month, and in that time, nearly 250 faculty, staff, students and community members across the state have signed it. And their requests have taken on new urgency as Mississippi is still the least vaccinated state in the country, with only 31 percent of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And the CDC has now warned that Mississippi is one of five states where the Delta variant could have the worst impact. 

Yet the universities are still trying to return to normal. In early June, MSU completely relaxed its social distancing requirements and lifted its mask mandate entirely. Some faculty were asked to take signs urging mask-wearing off their office doors. Privately, untenured professors reached out to Spain to express their concern. 

“People don’t necessarily feel safe to voice what can seem like an unpopular opinion,” Spain said. “But of course, it’s actually not an unpopular opinion for universities to require vaccinations.” 

Spain referred to a tracker maintained by the Chronicle of Higher Education which shows as of press time that 570 campuses in 36 states are requiring the COVID vaccine of at least some students or employees. 

“What we’re asking is not radical; institutions do this already,” Spain said. “This is a valid, important position, and many people hold it.” 

There appears to be confusion as to whether universities can require students to get the vaccine. In a March faculty senate meeting at MSU, President Mark Keenum was asked if the school planned to require the vaccine. 

“We’re gonna promote it as aggressively as we can,” he answered. “As far as the mandate, I had the same question—I talked to our attorneys, and I’ll just read to you what was shared with me from our own internal legal staff. 

“Mississippi law and IHL board policies require that students obtain certain vaccinations before attending an IHL institution,” Keenum read, looking down at his notes. “However, this does not currently include the COVID-19 vaccine. So unless the state law or the IHL board policy is amended, we can’t legally force someone to have a vaccine,” he finished. 

Keenum reassured the attendees that his office has had “some discussions about this” and that he plans to “have dialogue among IHL institutions, with our commissioner” about a possible mandate. 

“But again, the board would have to approve that,” he said. “Or the state could amend these vaccination requirements for a student to be able to enroll in any public university.” 

The University of Mississippi has also said it can’t mandate the COVID-19 vaccine until IHL amends its policy to include it, according to a June 25 article in the Daily Journal.

But IHL doesn’t appear to agree. In an email to Mississippi Today, Caron Blanton, the IHL spokesperson, wrote that the board’s policy does not prevent the universities from requiring vaccinations that aren’t expressly included. IHL’s policy, Blanton wrote, “represents the minimum requirements that must be enforced by the universities. Additional requirements are not prohibited.” 

The trustees have yet to publicly discuss the possibility of a vaccine requirement, but in the past, the board has been reluctant to implement system-wide mandates in response to the pandemic. Last April, IHL commissioner Alfred Rankins convened a task force “to craft a system-level plan for starting and completing the fall 2020 semester in the safest and most effective way.” In its recommendations issued in May, the task force’s baseline practice for schools was to “strongly encourage wearing face coverings while on campus,” despite the governor’s executive order implementing a state-wide school mask mandate. 

Gov. Tate Reeves could issue an executive order mandating students receive the COVID vaccine, but he is unlikely to. And Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, said at a forum in early June that “in college, where you do have an opportunity to get vaccinated and the outcomes are relatively mild for the majority of college folks, it’s hard to really raise the level of necessity to that level. Right now it doesn’t seem to be justified.” 

Baldwin and Spain plan to send the letter in mid-July to the IHL board, Reeves, Dobbs and the lieutenant governor and speaker of the house. It will be open to signatures until then. 

One of those signatories is Ann Fisher-Wirth, a poet and professor at the University of Mississippi. Until she received the second dose of the COVID vaccine in March, Fisher-Wirth, who is 74 and has rheumatoid arthritis, said she took “all the precautions.” That meant teaching and attending academic conferences over Zoom, no travelling to see her kids, no browsing Square Books or giving poetry readings, and shopping at one store only. For a while she washed her groceries. She always wore a mask.

Now fully vaccinated, Fisher-Wirth taught in-person this summer for the first time since the pandemic began. 

“Students do not sit six feet apart from each other,” she said, “They sit closer than that. They sit right next to their friends.” 

This week, she finally took a trip to see her children. She has tried to feel optimistic that the end of the pandemic is in sight, but she isn’t sure she can trust her community to come together. 

“People always talk a big game, ‘oh we’re one big family,’” Fisher-Wirth said. “But ‘one big family’ means that people look out for each other, and they don’t just think of what they want, they also think of what … would be beneficial for the people around them.” 

“I would not like to feel like I have to retire because of this,” she added. “I really enjoy teaching, I love being in the classroom, I love reaching those students, but I am immunocompromised. I’d like to feel protected.”

The post Hundreds of colleges nationwide are requiring COVID vaccines this fall. Can Mississippi? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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This week marks the anniversaries of several important events that contributed to the historic flag change. Below, you’ll find a comprehensive collection of our flag coverage, as well as our anniversary series that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the effort to change the flag. You’ll also see a timeline, originally published on our Instagram account, pointing out some of the pivotal moments leading to the change.

Below you’ll find 64 flag-related posts, including articles, cartoons, podcasts and surveys, that published during a 22-day period.

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The post Mississippi flag: one year later appeared first on Mississippi Today.

This is part four in a five-part series about Philip Gunn’s influence in changing the Mississippi state flag. Read part one here, read part two here, read part three here, and read more about the series here.

Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, feeling confident that he would soon have enough votes in his chamber to change the state flag, was at his home the morning of Monday, June 22, 2020, when he got a call from Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.

Hosemann, in his first year presiding over the Senate, informed Gunn that he would be hosting a press conference later that day with several other statewide elected officials outside the Senate chamber to publicly call for lawmakers to place the state flag decision on a statewide ballot. The people, not lawmakers, should decide the fate of the state flag, Hosemann argued.

Gunn, closer than ever to having enough House votes to change the flag, implored Hosemann to rethink the idea and shared his fear that a months-long campaign would divide rather than unite Mississippians and draw negative national attention to the state.

“I said, ‘Delbert, I don’t think that’s the right move,’” Gunn recalled telling Hosemann. “I said, ‘Let’s talk about that. Don’t take any action on that. I’m coming to the Capitol.’”

To that day — six days before the final vote — Gunn had been focused on the difficult battle of securing House votes to change the flag in the Legislature.

Hosemann, meanwhile, had been privately sharing with his Senate colleagues that he didn’t believe lawmakers should move to change the flag themselves. Mississippi Today had reported Hosemann’s apprehension to the legislative change and even his effort to relegate a Senate flag bill to a committee where it was assured death.

Several Senate leaders didn’t necessarily oppose the flag change, but they were content to wait and see if enough House Republicans would support a legislative change. The shared thinking of most every Republican senator at the time was that the House would never get the necessary votes to change the flag, so they didn’t worry much about it.

While Gunn had been counting House votes for a couple weeks, there had been no broad effort from Hosemann or any other Senate Republican leader to whip votes to change the flag. 

From outside the Capitol, it appeared as though there may have been movement on the legislative effort. But inside the building, there was still a gulf between the House and Senate leaders on how, if even at all, to move forward. The June 21 phone call illustrated that. 

When they hung up, Gunn drove to the Capitol and met with Hosemann, inquiring about how far along Hosemann was in the planning of the press conference. This served as their first substantive conversation about changing the flag.

“He said he hadn’t scheduled the press conference yet, and I said, ‘Let’s don’t. Let’s think about this and determine how best we can proceed,’” Gunn recalled. “You know the way this building works: A lot of times you have a shared outcome, but you have differing ideas about how to get there. Delbert and I have always had a good working relationship — I have a great deal of respect for him — and he agreed to hear me out and continue talks.”

Gunn, wanting to convince Hosemann that the Legislature, not voters, should change the flag, made a few calls and quickly organized a summit of statewide officials and conservative religious leaders.

The speaker wanted the meeting to remain private, so he called his friend Blake Thompson, president at Mississippi College, and asked if they could meet at the Mississippi College School of Law building a few blocks from the Capitol.

The next morning, June 23, Gunn hosted Hosemann, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney at the law school. They were met there by Shawn Parker of the Mississippi Baptist Convention and Ligon Duncan of Reformed Theological Seminary — both of whom were invited by Gunn after the speaker had spoken to them about the flag just a few hours before.

Gunn also asked Ron Matis, a lobbyist for the United Pentecostal Church of Mississippi, to join. Hosemann, a devout Catholic, invited his priest.

Gunn began the meeting by discussing where House members were and reiterating that he believed the best path forward was a vote of the Legislature. Hosemann went next and said that he believed voters, not lawmakers, should decide the fate of the flag. The religious leaders spoke individually about their thoughts and the politics of the matter for their congregations.

“I indicated that the Mississippi Baptist Convention was going to release a statement in support of changing the flag later that day,” Parker, who leads the largest Christian denomination in the state, told Mississippi Today. “Some of the other religious leaders said their intent was to follow suit. Then we prayed, asked for the Lord’s guidance as we navigated the next few days.”

Later that day, leaders of the Mississippi Baptist Convention released statements calling on lawmakers to change the state flag. The Baptist statements, regarded by some as one of the most significant moments of the entire effort, were careful to say lawmakers, not voters, should make the change.

Duncan, a renowned Presbyterian leader, released a statement the following morning calling on lawmakers, not voters, to make the change. Jackson Catholic Diocese Bishop Joseph Kopacz released a statement two days later calling on lawmakers, not voters, to make the change. The Mississippi United Pentecostal Church issued a statement three days later asking lawmakers to place the issue before voters.

“I was very proud of those religious leaders for doing what they did publicly,” Gunn said. “They didn’t have to do that. They weren’t trying to be political. They were doing what they believed was in accordance with scripture. That was a big deal for so many people.”

But leaving that meeting with the religious leaders, Hosemann continued to insist he believed lawmakers should put the issue on a statewide ballot rather than changing the flag themselves. Plus, the speaker knew he didn’t quite have the necessary votes in the House to change the flag even if Hosemann were to come on board.

So Gunn kept working the phones.

When Gunn returned to the Capitol following the meeting with religious leaders on June 23, he called University of Southern Mississippi President Rodney Bennett, one of eight presidents of public universities in the state.

All eight public universities had long stopped flying the state flag for moral reasons — a point of tension in the House and Senate in recent legislative sessions.

“I knew those presidents could get to members (in the Legislature) better than anyone,” Gunn said. “If anyone could do it, it was them.”

Bennett, at Gunn’s request, got all eight presidents to the speaker’s office the very next morning on June 24 — an incredible feat considering it can be difficult to get all eight presidents in the same room even for their scheduled college board meetings.

“I told them, ‘Look, this thing is moving. I need your help. I need for y’all to contact your alums in the House and the Senate,’ and I urged them to support this,” Gunn said. “They said they were on it. They immediately started making phone calls. They got prominent alums to call lawmakers. It was incredible.”

After their meeting with Gunn on June 24, the college presidents walked across the Capitol to meet with Hosemann.

That afternoon around 4 p.m., Gunn received another call from Hosemann.

“He said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I think the Legislature needs to do it,’” Gunn recalled. “I thought to myself, ‘Hallelujah, we are going to change this flag.’ Thinking back to that time, I really admire (Hosemann’s) desire to listen and come to the table. Not a lot of leaders are willing to do that, and the change couldn’t have happened without his support.”

A few minutes after Hosemann called Gunn, the lieutenant governor’s office released a statement.

“… the Legislature in 1894 selected the current flag and the Legislature should address it today.  Failing to do so only harms us and postpones the inevitable,” Hosemann said in the June 24 statement.

When the eight university presidents sat in Gunn’s office on June 24, an idea was floated.

As pressure outside the building to change the flag was reaching a fever pitch, several Mississippi college athletes and coaches had publicly chimed in about the flag change. Most notably, Kylin Hill, Mississippi State’s star running back, threatened to not suit up for the Bulldogs that fall if the flag wasn’t changed.

“Sports had already played a pretty big role in moving some lawmakers (to change the flag),” Gunn said. “It’s Mississippi. You know how sports are here. What more powerful way to convince people about this than sports?”

The presidents all agreed.

“From a press standpoint, the best thing we could come up with was to get the coaches involved,” said Rep. Trey Lamar, one of the speaker’s top lieutenants who was in the meeting with the university presidents. “So we told (the presidents) that and they all agreed, and they left that meeting with the understanding that we are leaving here, and we are calling our coaches and we are going to put it together. Within hours, you know, word had gotten back to us what was going to happen the next day. They were all coming back.”

On June 25, dozens of coaches from the state’s eight public universities arrived at the Capitol for a press conference to call for changing the state flag. Big names like Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin, Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach were joined by coaches of the less popular sports.

It’s difficult to portray how meaningful that moment was to the entire change effort. Before that, change seemed far-fetched inside the building, even as Gunn and others were whipping votes. But for such prominent figures to come together on short notice and demand the change in the very building where lawmakers worked was powerful.

Veteran Mississippi sportswriter Rick Cleveland, a columnist for Mississippi Today, put it this way: “All my professional life, I have wondered what it would take for all the universities in Mississippi to agree on any matter under the sun. Just once. And now I know: It’s the state flag of Mississippi — specifically, the need to get rid of the current flag.”

Nikki McCray-Penson, head women’s basketball coach at Mississippi State University, and Kermit Davis, head men’s basketball coach at Ole Miss, spoke at the press conference. Afterwards, the coaches met with individual lawmakers and leaders in the Capitol.

The only elected official invited to speak at the press conference was Philip Gunn.

“This entire state is screaming for change. This is an issue that needs to be resolved, and resolved quickly,” Gunn said. “The longer it goes, the more it festers and the harder it’s going to be later on. The image of our state is at stake here, ladies and gentlemen. The nation is watching.”

While Gunn had been organizing the meetings of the religious leaders, university presidents and coaches in hopes of changing Hosemann’s mind about unilateral legislative action, he also knew that those groups would have a tremendous effect on the individual lawmakers still on the fence about voting to change the flag.

With the stakes higher than ever, Gunn still didn’t have quite enough House votes to suspend the rules and pass the bill. There was also a final bill to write, the details of which had to be just right to keep the fragile coalition of supporters on board.

The final hours of that week would become some of the most intense of Gunn’s political career.

Part five of the Mississippi Today’s series will publish on July 2.

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A last gasp effort has been rejected to convince the Mississippi Supreme Court to reconsider its landmark decision which struck down the medical marijuana initiative approved by voters in November and the entire ballot initiative process.

The Supreme Court rejected the pleas by the sponsors of an early voting initiative and a recreational marijuana initiative to reconsider its 6-3 decision issued in late May. In a two page decision released Thursday, Southern District Justice Dawn Beam, writing for the Court, said parties that wanted to intervene in the lawsuit were given a time period in November to make the request. And since neither party did, “the present motion for leave to intervene is not well take and should be denied.”

And with the denial of that motion, the efforts of the groups to request a rehearing are moot, Beam wrote.

This effectively ends any possibility that the decision to strike down medical marijuana and the initiative process will be reversed.

The Supreme Court took its action in response to a lawsuit filed by Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler and the city of Madison in opposition to the medical marijuana ballot initiative that was approved by voters in November. The lawsuit contended, and the court agreed in the 6-3 decision, that the medical marijuana initiative and the entire ballot initiative process were invalid because the Constitution requires the signatures to place proposal on the ballot be gathered equally from five congressional districts. The state now has four U.S. House seats after the state lost a House seat as a result of the 2000 Census.

After the ruling in late May, Secretary of State Michael Watson who was a defendant in the lawsuit, opted not to ask for a rehearing. Watson said at the time he did not believe there was any chance the Supreme Court would reverse the ruling.

Instead, he said he was focusing on working with the Legislature to approve a medical marijuana law and to fix the initiative process so that it could resume. He has expressed optimism that the ballot initiative process can been revived in a manner so that the initiatives that were in the process when the Supreme Court decision was handed down could be restarted without their sponsors having to start over with the lengthy process.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Tate Reeves have not ruled out a special session to address the court ruling.

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Scott Waller, president of the state’s chamber of commerce, said business leaders are likely to weigh in on the politically charged issue of Medicaid expansion before next year’s legislative session.

“At the end of the day a healthy workforce is a vital component of moving our state and economy forward,” Waller, president of the Mississippi Economic Council said on Thursday. “… We understand access to health care is a big issue in our state, and also how to deal with uncompensated care.”

Waller said he expects MEC, which has about 11,000 members from 1,100 member companies, will soon begin a research drive, including measuring public opinion and polling MEC business leaders on Medicaid expansion and other health care issues. He said he expects the group will take a position and make policy recommendations before the 2022 legislative session begins in January.

“I’m confident this is something our leadership wants us to take a look at,” Waller said. As to why the state’s chamber of commerce hasn’t previously taken a stance on Medicaid expansion during years of debate, he said, “I think the timing now is lending itself for us to look at this issue.” He said business leaders will also likely study “what other avenues might exist.”

Most recently the Mississippi Hospital Association and other groups had begun a ballot initiative campaign to take the issue from the Legislature and put it directly before voters. But the move was halted by the state Supreme Court’s ruling in a lawsuit against the Initiative 65 medical marijuana program that the state’s ballot initiative process is constitutionally flawed.

READ MORE: ‘Human issue, not political’: Medicaid expansion ballot drive begins

Waller first broached the Medicaid expansion subject during a Thursday online forum presented by Mississippi Today on the one-year anniversary of Mississippi removing its old state flag with its divisive Confederate battle emblem. MEC and the state’s business leadership (along with many others) strongly advocating for the flag’s replacement helped move the Legislature after decades of inaction. Waller said MEC will likely weigh in on other major issues in the future, including Medicaid expansion.

Medicaid expansion has been a charged political issue in Mississippi, and brought heated — and most often partisan — debate. Mississippi, despite being the poorest state and otherwise dependent on federal spending, is one of just 12 states that has refused to expand Medicaid. Most of the state’s Republican leadership, starting with former Gov. Phil Bryant, have opposed expansion, saying they don’t want to help expand “Obamacare” and don’t trust the federal government to continue footing most of the bill.

Refusal to expand the state-federal program has left at least 200,000 “working poor” Mississippians without health coverage, with the state rejecting at least $1 billion a year in federal funds to provide it. It has also left Mississippi hospitals to pick up the tab — which now runs about $600 million a year — for providing care to those without health coverage. Six Mississippi hospitals have gone under in the last decade, and a recent study said that about half of the other rural hospitals statewide are at risk of closure — in a state that already lags the nation in access to quality health care.

Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn have recently reiterated their opposition to Medicaid expansion. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he’s open to discussion on the issue, one of few state GOP leaders to openly say so.

Hosemann in a recent statement said: “Key chairmen in the Senate will likely hold hearings later this year to learn more from providers, advocates, patients, and other stakeholders in the healthcare community about the delivery of healthcare in Mississippi.”

At the end of this year’s session, after lawmakers again failed to take up the Medicaid expansion issue, Hosemann noted, “We have to look in Mississippi at the delivery of health care. That is important.”

But he avoided using the words Medicaid expansion, saying, “I certainly don’t want to get bogged down by a moniker — saying I’m against this without looking at something when, if you really look at it, you may not be against that,” Hosemann said. “You may just be against some moniker.”

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Since COVID-19 first reached Mississippi in March of last year, Mississippi Today has been with our readers, trying to navigate a world that seemed to have permanently shifted on its axis. From the first case to waves of infections that pushed our hospital systems to the brink to thousands of Mississippians lost to the virus, we’ve never covered a public health crisis like this pandemic.

The arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in record time — and with efficacy levels no one had even dreamed of when this all started — has offered us and our state a path forward. Unfortunately, the use of these vaccines has become politicized, and it’s easier to find vaccine misinformation online than the truth.

That’s why we wanted to create a COVID-19 Vaccine Guide, where you can find everything you need to know about the vaccines alongside the how and where of getting them in Mississippi.

Myth Busters:

Mississippi Department of Health Chief Medical Officer Daniel Edney sat down with Mississippi Today’s health and breaking news reporter Will Stribling to debunk some common COVID-19 vaccine myths.

Read the full transcript for this video below.

Hi, I’m Dr. Dan Edney. I’m chief medical officer for the Mississippi State Department of Health, and I’m glad to be here today to answer any and all questions related to COVID vaccine.

All right so, first question. Does the vaccine cost money to get? That’s a great question because it does not. The federal government has bought all the vaccines that are being provided nationwide and people that have no insurance are not to be charged, the vaccine is free to everyone. Healthcare providers are allowed to charge insurance and administration fees to cover their costs but not to the patients.

Will the vaccine alter my DNA? Wow! We haven’t heard that one yet. So this is a very important question. The vaccine, the way both vaccines work have nothing to do with DNA. DNA is found in the nucleus of the cell and everything that’s being done with the vaccines is in the cytoplasm, which is part of the cell that’s surrounds the nucleus, and that’s where RNA is. And RNA, simply, is the coding for cells to produce proteins. And we need these cells to produce proteins, to attack the COVID virus. So the two type of vaccines introduce that code into the cytoplasm of our lymphocytes. So, they see the code and start producing anti-COVID proteins so that should you get COVID, your immune system recognizes it and starts attacking it in a healthy way, instead of the way it may do if you’re not immune and you get COVID naturally, your immune system may go out of control.

So, the vaccine does not affect DNA in any way. In fact, we wish we could affect DNA for diseases like cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, but we can’t yet. But this vaccine has nothing to do with DNA.

Does the vaccine have dangerous or long-term side effects? So we’re looking at two groups of people who are not vaccinated, mainly those who are hesitant because of this question. This is new. These vaccines have never been used widespread with the technology that we’re using, so it’s understandable people can be hesitant about it. And, I’ve talked to two patients this week that were hesitant for this very reason, both were at high risk. And so I explained to them that vaccine reactions virtually always occur within two weeks. If you look at all the data with all the vaccines that we have produced and mass deployed, the vaccine reactions are within two weeks. And that’s also what’s happening with our three vaccines that are FDA, EUA approved. And so we’re not seeing long-term side effects. And we now have over a year experience when you go back and look at those who are in the clinical trials, I’ve been vaccinated since December and have had no issues whatsoever so this question is not one of concern for us. What does have long-term side effects is COVID and you may have heard about long COVID or what we call COVID long haulers. We don’t talk about that very much. These are people who survive COVID, but who may never recover and are fully disabled because of their infection.

Will the vaccine gave me a dangerous blood clot? So, back in April, the Johnson & Johnson single shot vaccine was identified to clearly be causing a very strange type of blood clot in young women. And we call this entity vaccine induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia. And it is where the vaccine is causing an abnormal antibody to be produced that causes these blood clots to happen. This is very rare. It’s less than seven per million doses that are administered, and if you look at things like oral contraceptives, the risk of blood clots with birth control pills is sky high compared to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Moderna and Pfizer has shown no issues with blood clots, and also the Johnson Johnson single shot vaccine has not shown to be an issue with blood clots at all in those over 50.

So, a reasonable strategy is if you’re over 50 and you want the single shot, get it. If you’re a younger female, and you don’t want any risk of blood clots and go with Moderna or Pfizer. But even young women who choose to get Johnson Johnson are at exceedingly low risk of, getting blood clots from the COVID vaccine. However, if you get COVID, the risk of blood clots is extremely high from the virus itself.

So say a young woman is on birth control and she gets the Johnson and Johnson does that put her at even higher risk of a blood clot?

And that’s a great question. We have not seen that. We specifically looked at that because we were concerned based on that age group, that it was an interaction with oral contraceptives and it wasn’t, this is an independent vaccine. And this clearly is a vaccine reaction. Thankfully, it’s very, very rare. And one thing people need to know, the COVID vaccine monitoring is the most intense vaccine monitoring we have ever done. No other vaccine has ever been monitored to the extent that these vaccines are, and so much so that we were able to pick up the signal for those blood clots, even though it was seven per million. Our vaccine reactions surveillance picked that up. So, we are intensely watching for any other reactions and thus far, the only two that we’re seeing are anaphylaxis, which are allergic reactions to shots that anybody can have, and the VITT syndrome.

Was the vaccine development a rushed process? So this is a very legitimate question people are concerned about. It was developed rapidly, but because of good things. Typically I tell folks when we’re developing new medications or vaccines, the research labs working, you know, nine to five, Monday through Friday and off for holidays. With operation warp speed, it was all hands on deck, all the time, around the clock, 24/7 365. So the amount of lab time is, you know, over the 18 months before where we are now, the amount of lab time was significantly higher than the few months that everybody’s looking at the actual time in the lab. And we have never invested the amount of monetary resources into a vaccine development.

What we were concerned about as physicians a year ago was would it work. We were grateful of the rapidity of development but we did have a lot of confidence that the technology was going to work because we had a lot of success in the past. And the other thing people don’t realize, we’ve been studying messenger RNA, viral vaccine research for a decade. Adenovirus, deployment vaccine research for a long time, but with the amount of money that was invested, we were able to take that research off the shelf, invest the amount of resources we needed, and we wound up developing, you know, not one but three vaccines that were highly effective. Moderna, Pfizer, 95% safe and effective. Johnson and Johnson, more in the 80% range, safe and effective. If the vaccines had come out of it, 50% effective, we’d have been excited. So to have vaccines that are 95% effective and safe and free and widely available, is just incredible.

There’s been a tremendous amount of work. This was not a rush. The FDA has looked at all the data from all the clinical trials and felt it was safe for general deployment under emergency use authorization, which means it can be given legally. People have to understand it’s not fully approved because the FDA needs more data, but that data really is there and has been submitted and we expect full FDA approval within a matter of weeks.

Next question. If I’ve already had COVID-19 do I need the vaccine? Not only do you need it, you’re lucky. Because if you’ve had COVID naturally we know that you have antibodies cause we can measure those. That didn’t mean you were immune. The antibody, the technology we use to measure antibodies basically just tells us, has your immune system reacted to COVID. Doesn’t mean you’re immune. We can’t tell you that from a blood test, but we know that you’ve had antibody production, which is good, but what we really need is T-cell. Which is a type of white blood cell that actually goes after the virus itself, that just produced antibodies, but attacks the virus.

And the vaccines helped stimulate what we call T-cell mediated immunity. And what we’re seeing is that vaccinations are protecting better than natural immunity, but if you want the best immunity available, if you have recovered from COVID and you get vaccinated, there’s nothing more we can do to make you safer. It doesn’t mean you’re absolutely safe, but, you’re safer than I am having not have COVID. So, if you have had COVID and you have fully recovered, you don’t have to wait 90 days. It’s just when your physician says you’re fully recovered, then you can get vaccinated.

Do I need the vaccine if I’m social distancing and wearing a mask? If you’re in a group where you don’t know everyone, then you need to assume that COVID could be present. And even though you’re vaccinated, the vaccines are not a hundred percent effective. They’re 95% effective. So we don’t want you getting it at all so wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance. And that’s what I’ve been doing since last December. You know, if I’m going somewhere around people I don’t know, I want to wear my mask.

Can I stop wearing a mask once I get the vaccine? Which I just answered, which means in certain situations you can. If you know, my entire family that’s eligible is vaccinated, I don’t wear a mask around my family. When I’m around colleagues. I know we’re all vaccinated and we’re in a meeting, we don’t have to wear a mask. As long as everyone is vaccinated, then mask wearing is not mandatory. And again, you know, masks work, I mean, I don’t know why we have to try to explain this and I’ll be honest. I don’t know why there was confusion early on, you know? I think you will see a lot of healthcare workers like myself wearing mask during flu season, even after COVID just because it, it, they have worked. I don’t know why we were stubborn with this.

Do only vulnerable people need the vaccine? Well, unfortunately we’re all vulnerable. There’s no one who can say I’m not vulnerable to COVID. We have lost patients, of all age groups, including children and adolescents. We routinely will have pediatric patients in ICU, in our state, thankfully not big numbers, but, you know, we do see that. And it’s not that we’ve lost kids you know, with chronic illnesses, we’ve lost children that were otherwise healthy. We’ve lost people in every age group that were otherwise healthy and who should be alive today, but for the fact that that they had COVID, if you are vulnerable, such as, over 65 or having any chronic long-term medical problems, and you’re more vulnerable than the general population, you should absolutely be vaccinated.

And you know, as I’m talking to groups, you know, you care about yourself, you care about your family, but you care about your community too, and being vaccinated as a way to help. Demonstrate your care and concern for your community because you’re reducing the risk of giving COVID to someone that is very vulnerable.

Does Hydroxychloroquine offer protection against COVID-19? Is it an effective treatment for COVID-19? We wished that it were, we looked at it very hard. We wanted it to be when I was at the bedside of COVID patients last year. We needed anything to help us. And, , hydroxychloroquine was looked at very rigorously. The initial studies, which were just very small stage to see, is there a signal that it may be beneficial where there, which led to multiple groups doing larger studies, and when you expand the numbers, the positive factors went away. It does not help treat the disease.

Does the vaccine give you the virus? Well, we deal with this every year at flu shot time, “I got the flu shot five years ago and it gave me the flu.” No, it didn’t. You reacted to the vaccine as we want you to, you know, if you had received the COVID shot and you had fever and fatigue and those muscle aches for 12 to 24 hours, good. Your immune system is responding to the vaccine like we want it to. When you get the flu shot and you had a little fever, you had those muscle aches. That’s not the flu. That’s the flu shot stimulating your immune system.

There is no way for the COVID vaccine to give you COVID because there is no live virus in it. We’re using particles of the virus that are delivering the messenger RNA or delivering the code to the adenovirus, depending on what vaccine you’re getting. We’re delivering that code to our lymphocytes so that they can make anti-COVID antibodies where we can program our T-cells to respond. You’re getting just enough for that reaction to occur. There’s no way for it to give you the virus, that’s also true with the flu shot. You’re getting particles of the virus that are dead. There’s nothing alive there to replicate.

Will the vaccine affect my fertility? Another common question. And, this has been looked at rigorously, but mainly because of the questions started coming up and so all the back data was looked at and data going forward is being looked at, and the American college of obstetrics and gynecology has stated unequivocally that there are no impacts whatsoever. There is no any impact whatsoever on fertility. Definitely don’t use it as contraception because it won’t work. This was something of concern, but it’s been proven to be false and women do not need to worry about fertility issues.

Will the vaccine put a microchip in my body? You know, the Bill Gates theory is what it is and the most common thing I hear is what it’s gonna allow me to be tracked. *Holds up cell phone* If anybody wants, if the government wants to track me, it’s real easy, they just, they can access my cell phone signal and see where I am at any time and access my data. I have a lot of data on that smartphone that they can download if they so chose. That is much easier than coming up with a scheme that they were going to create a pandemic so we can get microchips in everybody. And then you have a state like Mississippi, where we have a low vaccine rates not even working. So no, there is no microchip, and that’s just one that somehow people just gotta understand that that is a myth.

Will the vaccine make me magnetic? No, it won’t give you a magnetic personality. It won’t magnetize you. It won’t do anything then any more than any other vaccine. I honestly don’t know where this one came from. It’s just not true. You know, your injection area is not magnetized. There are no metals in the vaccine. There are no heavy metals in the vaccine and you know, the only thing that prevents us administering the vaccine is if you’re allergic to the components of the vaccine. There’s nothing in the vaccine that can be magnetized.

What is true is that 96% of America’s physicians are fully vaccinated. So if you trust your doctor and you listened to your doctor for health care advice, which I hope is your source, you don’t have to take it from the health department, although we hope that you trust us and take our information, but certainly you trust your personal physician. 96% of America’s physicians are fully vaccinated. Your doctor knows that our vaccines are safe, effective, free, and widely available. Talk to your doctor about being vaccinated. Your doctor will explain all the reasons why you need to be vaccinated. And now the big push is getting vaccines into the clinic.So you can get your shot at your doctor. Visit just like getting your flu shot.

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Mississippi casinos are making more money now than they were before the pandemic, and the Gulf Coast is leading the spike.

Mississippi casinos are reporting a nearly 21% increase in gross gaming revenue so far this year compared to the same period in 2019, according to data from the state Gaming Commission.

From January through May, the latest data available, the state’s casinos reported a gross gaming revenue totaling $1.1 billion. The Gulf Coast’s casinos gross revenue for the months of March, April and May have never been higher, according to Gaming Commission records. 

“There was less competition for people’s discretionary dollars when you consider the number of businesses that had to close,” said Keith Crosby, the general manager of Biloxi’s Palace Casino. “On the flip side of that effect, the casino industry got ahead of it with some significant safety measures in place to deal with COVID.” 

Coast casinos aren’t just breaking their collective revenue record, they’re smashing it. In April of this year, the Gulf Coast casinos reported a gross gaming revenue increase of about $46 million and $34 million in May. 

Gross gaming revenue — the amount of money players wager minus what they win — is similar to traditional businesses’ sales figures. The gaming revenue numbers do not account for the cost of doing business.

Mississippi casinos reported nearly $1.8 billion in gross revenue for all of 2020, which included the roughly two months they had to shut down because of the pandemic. In 2019, that figure was $2.2 billion. With half of the year still left, the casinos are on pace to have the highest total gross gaming revenue since they began operating in the 1990s. 

The casinos’ recent spike is matched with an increase in tourists visiting the Gulf Coast. Karen Conner, the director of marketing for tourism bureau Coastal Mississippi, said the region’s number of tourists is higher now than it has been in the last several years. 

“This significant increase in visitation serves as an important benchmark for the progress of our recovery as a destination,” Conner said. “Tourism is the lifeblood of Mississippi’s tri-county coastal region, but despite the indelible impact of COVID-19 on the industry, Coastal Mississippi continues to see successes and growth.” 

State Rep. Casey Eure, a Republcian from Biloxi who chairs the House Gaming Committee, said the casinos have benefited as more professional sporting events resumed. The state started allowing sports betting inside casinos in 2018. 

“I think Mississippi casinos are some of the best in the country,” Eure said. “People have been happy to get back to normal life.” 

The growth hasn’t come without some complications. Hospitality businesses across the state are still struggling to fill positions with qualified workers.

The Beau Rivage, the Coast’s largest casino and resort, had 99 open positions on its website Wednesday. That’s even after the Biloxi resort and casino had a job fair in May, which hosted about 300 people and resulted in 120 job offers. 

In response to labor demands, some casinos have started raising wages. 

“The cost of doing business is going up,” said Crosby, the Palace manager. “Food costs are up, material costs are up. You have to think about what that nets out to. There may be better revenue but there is a creeping increase in cost following that.” 

Casinos, like restaurants and bars, have had to deal with sudden shifts in supply chains resulting in pricy poultry and hard-to-secure crab legs. Crosby pointed to a common water valve that used to cost $8 that is now going for $18.

The casino manager said he’s waiting to see how the fall fairs. He doesn’t expect the record-smashing gross revenue to continue much longer. 

“There’s no question the last 12 to 14 months were unique,” Crosby said. “As we move out of that uniqueness, things are going to start to sort back out again. I think there is as much unknown in the future as there was when we first reopened.”

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