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Voters will have the opportunity in November to remove a Jim Crow-era provision from the state Constitution that makes Mississippi the only state in the nation where a candidate for statewide office can win a majority of the popular vote and not be elected.

The Mississippi Constitution, adopted in 1890, requires the winning candidate for governor and for other statewide offices to obtain both a majority of the popular vote and win the most votes in a majority of the 122 House districts. If no candidate obtains both of those requirements, the Mississippi House of Representatives gets to choose the winner of the top two vote-getters.

But a resolution passed this month by both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature would remove that requirement. This week’s legislative action means that Mississippi voters will decide in November whether to remove that provision from the Constitution.

The provision was placed in the Constitution in 1890, according to the written account of that time, to ensure Black Mississippians, then a majority in the state, were not elected to statewide office. The state House districts were configured in a manner to ensure white Mississippians would have a majority in that chamber.

The Legislature acted in response to a federal lawsuit challenging whether the electoral provisions violated principles of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit was filed last year in the midst of the gubernatorial race between Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood and Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves.

The lawsuit claimed that under the gerrymandered House districts, Hood would have had to win as much as 55 percent of the popular vote to win the majority of the House districts. In effect, the plaintiffs argued, the provision dilutes the strength of African American voters, who are more prone to vote for the Democratic candidate in Mississippi.

U.S. Judge Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi did not rule on the lawsuit but expressed “grave concerns” and indicated he might rule at a later date if the election was impacted by the provision or if the Legislature did not act to remove the provision. Jordan met with legislative leaders about the issue before the 2020 session began. With Reeves garnering 52 percent of the vote and winning the majority of the House districts, the provision throwing the election into the House was not a factor.

The lawsuit was filed by the National Redistricting Foundation and the Mississippi Center for Justice on behalf of African American voters in the state. In a press release, the Mississippi Center for Justice pointed out that the Legislature’s final passage of the resolution on Monday comes one day after lawmakers addressed another 1890s-era issue: the removal of the state flag that has the Confederate battle emblem as part of its design.

“In the wake of the historic removal of the Confederate emblem from our state’s flag, we are pleased the Legislature is taking this additional step to remove this racist relic of the post-Reconstruction era from Mississippi law,” said Vangela M. Wade, president of the Mississippi Center for Justice. “In addition to joining in the lawsuit that led to this development, we are moving forward with our challenge to Mississippi’s felon disfranchisement law, which is another discriminatory provision of the 1890 Constitution. We want to take advantage of this important moment in American race relations to advance the cause of justice in our home state of Mississippi.”

If approved by voters in November, the provision will be removed, but Mississippi will still be in a minority of states. Under the resolution approved by the Legislature and pending the approval of the voters, Mississippi would become one of only three states in the nation to require a runoff between the top two vote-getters if no candidate achieves a majority of the votes. Georgia and Louisiana require runoffs. Vermont’s statewide elections are thrown to its legislature to decide if no candidate obtains a majority.

Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, was one of two senators to vote against the resolution. He supported removing the provision throwing elections into the House but opposed placing in the Constitution the runoff. He said the runoff could be placed in general law.

It takes more votes (two-thirds of both chambers and a vote of the people) to change constitutional provisions than it does general law, which requires only a majority to change.

“We are tying the hands of future legislatures,” said Bryan, who said a future legislature might want to do ranked voting. Ranked voting gives extra points to candidates who finish No. 2 in a multiple candidate field in order to select a winner.

Senate Constitution Chair Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg, said, “Sen. Bryan has made valid points,” but indicated at this late date in the session senators should pass the language before them creating the runoff.

The only instances where the electoral provision was a factor were in three consecutive elections in the 1990s.

Editor’s note: Vangela M. Wade is a member of Mississippi Today’s board of directors.

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Kayleigh Skinner/Mississippi Today

Myrlie Evers and Gov. William Winter head to the opening ceremonies for the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History in December, 2017.

Myrlie Evers began to weep when she heard the Mississippi Legislature voted to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag.

“I can’t believe it. I am so emotional,” the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers said. “Medgar’s wings must be clapping.”

On Sunday, the Mississippi House and Senate voted to replace the current state flag, a day after they voted to suspend the rules in order to bring up the new legislation.

If Gov. Tate Reeves signs the bill as expected, Mississippi would cease being the remaining state in the nation with the Confederate battle flag as a part of its state flag.

Under the legislation, a nine-person commission would be appointed to adopt a new design for the state flag. That design must include the phrase, “In God We Trust,” but it can’t include the Confederate battle emblem.

If voters in November reject the new design, the commission would present a different option to the Legislature in 2021.

A recent poll found that 55% of Mississippians wanted to change the current flag. That number jumped to 72% when the flag incorporated the motto, “In God We Trust.”

Both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann championed passage of the bill in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

State Sen. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said the passage of the bill has taught the state a lesson. “We’re white. We’re black,” he said. “We’re from the Delta. We’re from the hills. We’re from the coast. We are one Mississippi moving forward.”

State Sen. Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg, acknowledged that the Legislature has “punted this ball away in the past … Right now, in this great state in which we live, on this day, we have an opportunity to push this ball across the goal line.”

Myrlie Evers praised the courage of lawmakers. “I never thought this would happen,” she said. “For the people who hold the palm of Mississippi in their hands, for their wisdom and their strength, for them to vote the way they did is all but unbelievable to me, but I am ever so thankful for that vote.”

Mississippi has flown the current state flag since 1894 — four years after the state adopted a new constitution aimed at reasserting white supremacy and disenfranchising African Americans.

Other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, and soon African Americans across the South were barred from voting.

Myrlie Evers was born in 1933 in Vicksburg, the last major Confederate stronghold along the Mississippi River before Confederate soldiers surrendered to Union forces on July 4, 1863.

Growing up there, the Mississippi flag symbolized “slavery and second-class citizenship for those whose color was not white,” she said.

She is nearing 90 years of age, she said, “and I have carried the burden of my skin to what it represented to Caucasians and remember what my forefathers fought for — education and land ownership.”

Her late husband, Medgar, “gave his life for his country,” she said. “He fought in Europe as a second-class soldier, fighting for a country that did not appreciate him. His life was taken June 12, 1963, because of those same freedoms.”

She worries that the hard work of those in the civil rights movement has been forgotten.

“We’re moving into more turbulent times because of the leadership in this country,” she said.

After watching the news, she said she sometimes finds herself in anger and despair.

“I feel my heart being ripped in shreds,” she said. “I hurt that deeply for what’s going on in America today.”

The deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans captured on video and shown on television have resurrected nightmares of the night when her husband was shot in the back in their driveway outside their Jackson, Mississippi, home.

When she heard the gunshot, she ran outside, saw her husband in a pool of blood and screamed. He died an hour later at the hospital.

“America is at a crossroads,” she said, just as it was six decades ago during the civil rights movement.

“I don’t have much time left, but I have children and I have grandchildren,” she said. “What kind of future will they have here, what kind of life will they have here in the land of their birth, the land that their grandfather fought in Europe to protect, America the Beautiful? But America is no longer beautiful.”

She continues to pray for God’s help for the nation, she said. “I’m frightened, and I just hope people of goodwill will come together and vote for what they know is right and what is just and what is good for all of us, regardless of race, creed or color.”

She regards hatred as poison. “It poisons us as individuals,” she said. “I don’t want that poison flowing through my veins anymore.”

What Mississippi has done should inspire the nation, she said. “If Mississippi can make a move like this, I hope the rest of America can look at themselves and their states and see their signs of prejudice, hate and racism and perhaps be brave enough to remove them.”

MCIR’s James Finn contributed to this report.

Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for MCIR’s newsletters here.

Email him at Jerry.Mitchell.MCIR@gmail.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

The Mississippi State Flag flies in downtown Jackson on Thursday, June 25, 2020.

Lawmakers voted on Sunday to remove the Mississippi state flag, the last in the nation featuring the Confederate battle emblem, more than 126 years after it was adopted.

The House and Senate passed a bill on Sunday that will immediately remove the state flag, and Gov. Tate Reeves said he would sign the bill into law. A nine-person commission will be appointed to develop a single new design by September, and Mississippi voters will approve or reject that design on the November 2020 ballot. In the meantime, Mississippi will have no official state flag.

The historic vote brought tears to the eyes of many lawmakers. Cheers echoed in the halls of the Mississippi State Capitol shortly after the final votes were cast, and many Mississippians who visited the building to witness the moment openly wept.

“We are better today than we were yesterday,” said Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, who authored the bill that passed on Sunday. “Today, the future has taken root in the present. Today, we and the rest of the nation can look on our state with new eyes, with pride and hope.

“We are not betraying our heritage,” Gunn continued. “We are fulfilling it.”

The flag, long a point of political contention in Mississippi, was seen by many as a symbol of hate. In 2001, Mississippi voters decided nearly 2-to-1 to keep the divisive emblem on the state flag, solidifying its place on the official state banner for nearly two decades. For years, supporters of changing the flag have not been able to garner the simple majority needed to change the controversial banner through the normal legislative process.

But the violent death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests that reached Mississippi and shined new light on the state flag. And in recent weeks, immense pressure mounted from religious, business, civic, university, sports and other leaders to remove the Confederate emblem from the flag.

A growing list of businesses, cities, counties and other groups either stopped flying the flag or asked leaders to change it. Religious leaders spoken out, saying changing the flag was a “moral issue.”  The NCAA, SEC, and Conference USA this month took action to ban postseason play in Mississippi until the flag was changed.

“As an African American man born in 1958, I grew up as a child of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez and House Democratic leader. “All the things I heard from those men at the podium – that none of us went up to speak about because we’ve been saying it for years – but all those things they talked about, we’ve been feeling for years.”

Johnson began crying and paused for a moment before continuing: “What it means to me is it isn’t just words. They began to understand and feel the same thing I’ve been feeling for 61 years of my life.”

Johnson said Mississippi needs help with many problems, such as poverty and poor health care, but the nation and world “have been reluctant” to work with Mississippi and that removing the flag with a Confederate emblem will help.

“Now that this is gone, they will begin to look and see who the real Mississippi is, and see that we are more than what that flag represents,” Johnson said.

The Senate debate on Sunday lasted about two hours, with several senators arguing that the issue should go to voters instead of being made by lawmakers. Several senators rebutted that argument before passing the bill.

“I think the Mississippi Senate and me personally, we want Mississippi to have a heart and a soul,” said Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann after the vote. “Today she had one.”

The House approved the bill by a vote of 92-23 on Sunday, with eight more House members voting to approve the final bill than they did on a procedural vote on Saturday. The Senate approved the bill by a vote of 37-14, with one more Senate member voting to approve than on Saturday.

“For 100 plus years, we have been living under this flag,” said Sen. David Jordan, D-Greenwood. “We watered this land with our tears and made it rich with our bones, so it’s only fair that we have a symbol that represents us and (does) not remind us of what has happened to us.”

The debate over the state flag captured the close attention of Mississippians for weeks. By the final vote in the Senate on Sunday, the news reverberated across the state. Many prominent Mississippians expressed their appreciation.

“Removal of the Confederate battle flag from our state flag is long overdue,” former Gov. William Winter said in a statement. “I congratulate the Mississippi Legislature on their decisive action today removing this divisive symbol. Along with many committed Mississippians, I have fought for decades to change the flag, most notably during the flag referendum 20 years ago.

“I’m delighted by this positive move,” Winter continued. “I’m especially grateful at age 97 to witness this step forward by the state I love.”

Now attention will turn to the next steps in the process of developing a new state flag. The new design “will not include the Confederate battle flag but shall include the words ‘In God We Trust’,” the bill passed on Sunday reads. Should voters reject that design in November, the commission would present a new option during the 2021 legislative session, according to the resolution.

Gov. Tate Reeves, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn will appoint three people each to the commission. The governor’s three appointees must be representatives from the Mississippi Economic Council, the Mississippi Arts Commission, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Hosemann and Gunn face no specific commission appointment requirements.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History will have up to 15 days after Reeves signs the bill into law to officially retire the current state flag.

“All eyes are on Mississippi, and today, we have made an historic decision,” said Sen. Angela Turner Ford, chairwoman of the Legislative Black Caucus. “… Today we mark a transition for Mississippi, a day where we can be proud to move forward to adopt a symbol that is inclusive, a symbol that all of us can rally behind … We’ve made a decision to move forward, and I hope Mississippians are proud of that decision.”

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A protester waves the current Mississippi state flag as he sits in front of the Capitol on Saturday. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will be updated throughout the day Sunday.

The House and Senate will begin working on Sunday to remove the Mississippi state flag, which has flown since 1894 and is the last in the nation containing the Confederate battle emblem.

The House of Representatives voted 91-23 to remove the flag. It now moves to the Senate for consideration. Legislative leaders hope the bill will be passed in both chambers by the end of business on Sunday.

Gov. Tate Reeves, who has been careful not to take a hard position on changing the state flag, said he would sign any bill lawmakers send his way.

The bill, authored by House Speaker Philip Gunn, stipulates that the current flag would be immediately removed and a nine-person commission would be created to redesign the state flag. The commission would recommend a new design by Sept. 14, and voters would approve or reject that design on Nov. 3.

The design “would not include the Confederate battle flag but shall include the words ‘In God We Trust’.” Should voters reject that design, the commission would present a new option during the 2021 legislative session, according to the resolution.

Gov. Tate Reeves, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn would appoint three people each to the commission. The governor’s three appointees must be a representative from the Mississippi Economic Council, the Mississippi Arts Commission, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. There are no specific commission appointment requirements for the lieutenant governor or speaker.

The exact details of the bill are subject to change during the legislative process on Sunday. At any point, the bill could be amended to change the process of replacing the flag or even forcing a vote on whether to keep the current flag.

But based on Saturday’s vote on the rules suspension resolution, it appears House and Senate leaders have the votes to ensure the demise of the current flag that has been flying since 1894.

The vote on the controversial issue at this late date in the session is notable. Garnering a two-thirds vote to suspend rules for any reason is difficult, but particularly on the long-contentious state flag issue.

For years, supporters of changing the flag have not been able to garner the simple majority needed to change the controversial banner through the normal legislative process. But the violent death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests that reached Mississippi and shined new light on the state flag that many view as racist.

And in recent weeks, immense pressure mounted from religious, business, civic, university, sports and other leaders to remove the Confederate emblem from the flag. A growing list of businesses, cities, counties and other groups have either stopped flying the flag or asked leaders to change it. Religious leaders have spoken out, saying changing the flag is a “moral issue.”  The NCAA, SEC, and Conference USA this month took action to ban post-season play in the state until the flag is changed.

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