The debate to change the Mississippi State Flag has reached a new level as Jimmy Buffet, John Grisham, Morgan Freeman and former New Orleans Saints quarterback Archie Manning added their signatures to an ever-growing list of famous current and former Mississippi residents asking to remove the Confederate battle emblem from within the state flag.
The celebrities joined 60 others in signing a letter titled "A Flag for All of Us," that appeared as a full-page ad in Sunday's Clarion-Ledger.
The letter read in part: "It is simply not fair, or honorable, to ask black Mississippians to attend schools, compete in athletic events, work in the public sector, serve in the National Guard, and go about their normal lives with a state flag that glorifies a war fought to keep their ancestors enslaved."
Other celebrities who signed the letter included: Kathryn Stockett, author of "The Help;" Grammy-winning producer Glen Ballard, Basketball Hall of Famer Bailey Howell, former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, and former Gov. William Winter, according to the AP.
A number of prominent Mississippians – House Speaker Philip Gunn, the state's Southeastern Conference football coaches, and even the great-great-grandson of Confederate President Jefferson Davis – chimed into the discussion, saying that the Confederate battle flag belongs in a museum, according to USA Today.
"The tide is turning with business leadership saying it hurts our ability to recruit corporations and with coaches saying it hurts our ability to recruit athletes," said state Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson. "The flag is a turnoff."
However, those who voted for the flag to remain the same back in 2001 say the arguments that failed last time have yet to change.
"Rap and hip-hop artists use the (Confederate battle) flag so that kind of sucks the wind out of the 'offensive' argument," said Greg Stewart, administrator of Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library.
Author Greg Iles, who also signed the letter, disagreed with that look saying that 14 years is a long time.
"Think of America in 1931 and then in 1945 - that's 14 years, and a tectonic shift in national identity. Think of 1961 and 1975," he told the newspaper. "The Confederate flag is no longer a viable state or national symbol in 2015."
With other states removing their Confederate battle flags, Mississippi remains the last with the Confederate emblem flying over the statehouse.
