OurTupelo

Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

Capitol employees remove the state flag in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, July 1, 2020.

Gov. Tate Reeves was not a participant Wednesday in the momentous occasion where the state flags that flew over the Mississippi Capitol were removed — the official retirement of the banner featuring the Confederate battle emblem that had flown over the state since 1894.

As Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann delivered the flags to the Mississippi Museum of History in a ceremony officiated by the Department of Archives and History, Reeves was holding his first news conference since June 18 to give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bobby Harrison

Reeves already had scheduled his news conference before the legislative leaders set a time and date for the flag furling ceremony.

Both Gunn and Hosemann spoke of the significance of the day where the flag was retired.

Perhaps it could be argued that the absence of the governor at such a pivotal event in the state’s history was itself symbolic.

The flag debate that culminated on the weekend of June 27 with the Legislature voting to replace the flag put Reeves in a near-impossible political situation — a situation he most likely never saw coming until it was on top of him like a ton of bricks.

During his gubernatorial campaign in 2019, Reeves made it clear he would not support changing the flag without a vote of the people. But unfortunately for Reeves, Gunn never made that commitment. Since 2015, the House speaker has been on record as supporting changing the flag.

And as momentum grew nationwide and in Mississippi in recent weeks to address issues of racial injustice, the state flag stuck out like a sore thumb. Soon media reports surfaced that there were behind the scene talks among a bipartisan group of lawmakers to change the banner.

Still, Reeves must not have been too concerned. After all, despite Gunn’s opposition, the speaker had never tried to pass a bill changing the flag because he could not muster the simple majority needed to pass it. And at the late date in the session, a renewed effort to change the flag would require what appeared to be an impossible-to-achieve two-thirds majority vote.

But as talk persisted about changing the flag, Reeves was asked about the issue at his near daily news conferences held to provide COVID-19 updates. He reiterated his belief the flag should not be changed by the Legislature.

As the issue progressed, members of the media began to ask Reeves whether he personally believed the flag was offensive and should be changed. He refused to answer time and again, though he did say he believed one day the flag would be retired.

At his June 18 news conference, which was his last before the one he held during the flag ceremony, Reeves re-stated: “I believe very strongly if you are going to change the flag, it ought to be the people of Mississippi who make the decision.”

Finally, on June 25, as momentum grew, Reeves appeared to relent. Reeves said on social media that if the Legislature voted to change the flag, he would not veto the bill. He said because he knew a veto would be pointless, considering it took a two-thirds majority to override a veto — the same super majority it took to remove the flag late in the session.

And then on June 27 — a rare Saturday session of the Legislature — as Hosemann worked to garner the final votes needed to obtain the super majority in the Senate, Reeves announced he would sign the bill to change the flag.

There has been speculation that Reeves’ announcement that day helped garner the final vote or two needed to pass the bill. Perhaps the answer to that question will never be known, but it is worth noting that what Reeves said that Saturday morning was not much different than what he’d said a couple of days earlier when he announced he would not veto the legislation. After all, there was not much difference in not vetoing legislation and signing legislation. Under either scenario, the bill would have become law.

At any rate, later that day, both chambers passed by more than the two-thirds margin the resolution allowing the bill to change the flag to be considered. Then the next day, that bill passed both chambers by margins larger than two-thirds.

Two days later, when Reeves signed the bill into law in a private ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion where only three “pool reporters” were allowed to attend, he uttered for the first time his support for a new flag.

By then, six of the eight statewide officials had voiced support for changing the flag.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves put himself in a no-win political position during state flag debate appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Demonstrators from around the Delta gathered in Cleveland on July 3, 2020, to protest the Confederate statue outside the Bolivar County Courthouse. Protestors, many carrying signs that read Black Lives Matter, were asking the county to take down the statue without spending county money to relocate it or build a new home for it.

The post Photo gallery: Confederate statue protest by Rory Doyle appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Courtesy Kolinsky family

Nick Kolinsky, right, with his dear friend, Jack Lucas.

My old and dear friend Nick Kolinsky, a patriot if ever there was one, died four years ago on July 5, a day after his 77th Independence Day.

Nick was a Mississippian by choice, not birth. He was an Army veteran, who loved his country and the men and women who fought for it. But he was much more than that, as we will see. He was a football star, a square-jawed, bull-strong guard on a national championship (1962) team at Southern Miss. A Pennsylvania native, Nick learned about then-Mississippi Southern College when he was in the Army and drinking beer with some other soldiers in a German beer hall. One of the soldiers had attended the Hattiesburg school and raved about it. To Nick, the place sounded idyllic. He decided right then he was going to go to college in the funny-named town. And he did. When he left Pennsylvania, he told his mama he was headed for Mississippi.

Her reply: “Son, that’s a river, isn’t it?”

When he got to Hattiesburg, he walked, unannounced into Hall of Fame football coach Pie Vann’s office. “My name is Nick Kolinsky, and I want to play football for you,” he told Vann.

Vann sized him up and quickly decided Nick passed that test. Vann gave him a tryout and then a scholarship. Nick flourished at USM, where he sometimes babysat for me and my little brother. And he never left Hattiesburg. He was an entrepreneur, a tavern owner who also ran a moving business. He was a devout Catholic, a family man, a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He was a character, Nick was. He was a Hattiesburg icon, possessing remarkable spirit, energy and work ethic. He was an emotional guy, who laughed and cried often, with no apologies for the latter. He was a do-er.

Rick Cleveland

If you were Nick’s friend, he would do anything for you. If you were a stranger, he would do anything for you anyway, which brings us to today’s story, one I’ve told in other newspapers but deserves re-telling here.

In 1981, Jack Lucas was a stranger. One day after work, Nick was watching TV, flipping channels, until he saw a CBS news program with images of the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. He was hooked.

The program told the Jack Lucas story. How Lucas, from North Carolina, had lied about his age at 14 to join the U.S. Marines. How, on Feb. 20, 1945, six days after his 17th birthday, Lucas hurled his body onto two enemy grenades, saving the lives of three fellow marines. How Lucas somehow survived the grenades with shrapnel throughout his body. How Lucas became the youngest ever to win the Congressional Medal of Honor, pinned on him by President Harry S. Truman.

But the program also told how Lucas had fallen on hard times, was living in a meat locker in Maryland on a $200 a month stipend from the government. Because of IRS problems, all other government benefits were garnished.

Nick Kolinsky, in the stands at M.M. Roberts Stadium.

Nick Kolinsky was horrified. He could not believe his country would let this happen to such a patriot, such a hero. Nick cried himself to sleep that night and awakened in tears the next morning. Said his wife, Carol: “Well, do something about it.”

Nick called the CBS affiliate in Mobile and was told he should call the national network. He did so and was so insistent he was finally given the phone number of the program’s producer. Nick convinced the producer that all he wanted to do was help Lucas, and the producer gave Nick a phone number.

After several tries, Nick finally got Lucas on the phone. They talked and hit it off. Several more phone calls ensued. Nick also made another call to the late U.S. Rep. Sonny Montgomery, a champion of military veterans. Nick was convincing, and Montgomery had pull. Within weeks, Lucas was restored to full benefits.

That wasn’t enough for Nick, who knew Lucas was lonely. So he invited Lucas for a visit and then he offered him a place to live – and a family, his family. Nick and Carol and their four children. Nick and Carol Kolinsky’s daughter, Kim Kolinsky, became particularly close to Jack Lucas, like the daughter he had never had.

“I don’t have much to offer you, but I can offer you a family,” Nick told Lucas. And that’s the way it went down.

Rick Cleveland

Jack Lucas gravesite at Highland Cemetery in Hattiesburg.

Eventually, Lucas bought his own home in Hattiesburg, and just as Nick Kolinsky, he never left. In the Hub City, Lucas met and married his wife, Ruby. His final years were happy ones. More than 63 years after his act of heroism, Jack Lucas died on June 15, 2008. Yes, and the section of U.S. 49 between Wiggins and Hattiesburg is known as the Jack Lucas Medal of Honor Memorial Highway.

Eight years and a few days later after Jack Lucas’ death, Nick Kolinsky passed away, leaving behind untold numbers of friends and admirers – and also leaving his adopted home, Hattiesburg, a far better place.

Legions of friends attended Nick’s funeral four years ago. I was one. Appropriately, there was at least one stranger.

“I never knew this man Nick Kolinsky,” a man who said he was from Mobile told several of us. “I am here to pay respects because of what he did for Jack Lucas.”

The post An Independence Day story of two vets who made Hattiesburg their second home appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Fireworks appeared first on Mississippi Today.