The NAACP, the nation’s largest African American activist organization, is pressuring the governing body for college sports to cancel its tournaments in Mississippi because a portion of the state’s flag contains the Southern Cross emblem associated with the long-dead Confederate States of America.
The Magnolia State is the last state with the Confederate emblem on its official flag, and the NAACP wants Mississippi punished for that fact. It is an emblem that NAACP president Derrick Johnson calls a “racial hate symbol,” the Associated Press reported.
Johnson now wants the NCAA, the organization that governs college sports, to cancel all tournaments in Mississippi unless, or until, the state removes the Confederate symbol from its flag.
The NCAA has tournaments planned for the University of Mississippi in Oxford this week, but Johnson wants the games canceled because, “Racial hate symbols are the same regardless of the tournament being played.” full story
