Lawsuit to Change Mississippi Flag An ‘Uphill Battle,’ But Could Work

Carlos Moore’s lawsuit says Mississippi’s flag is unconstitutional and causes racial violence. Moore, a lawyer based in Grenada, filed the suit Monday, arguing that flying the state flag on state and public property is tantamount to hateful government speech against himself and other African American residents of Mississippi.

“We are happy to give it (the lawsuit option) a try; we think it’s worth the fight,” Moore told the Jackson Free Press Monday.

Moore believes that his constitutional rights have been violated—along with all African American citizens of the state—because the current state flag contains a Confederate emblem “with a racial discriminatory purpose to subjugate African-Americans to second-class status and promote the notion of white supremacy.”

The lawsuit was filed in the Southern Mississippi U.S. District Court, and Moore said that he used some of the same language from the Obergefell v. Hodges case, which the U.S. Supreme Court solidified last June to legalize same-sex marriage nationally. Moore’s lawsuit claims that the Mississippi state flag, with the Confederate emblem in its canton, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“If (Obergefell v. Hodges) applies to same-sex couples, and they’ve got the right to be respected, surely African Americans have the right to be respected too,” Moore said.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Gov. Bryant’s communications director, Clay Chandler, responded to the lawsuit: “This is a frivolous attempt to use the federal court system to usurp the will of the people. The governor hopes Attorney General Jim Hood will seek attorneys’ fees to reimburse taxpayers the cost of defending against this needless drain on state resources.”

Hoping that one of the 12 bills filed this session to change the state flag would go through last week, Moore had held off on submitting his lawsuit. Last week, however, all flag bills died in committee, and the JFP reported that Gov. Bryant had declared April “Confederate Heritage Month” two weeks earlier during Black History Month—for Moore, that was enough.

“That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I could not wait another day to file this lawsuit,” he said Monday.

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