Walmart and southern Baptists join calls to remove Confederate symbol from Mississippi flag

State’s largest religious congregation says current design a ‘relic of racism and symbol of hate’

Nationwide calls to remove symbols of the Confederacy in the wake of widespread protests against racial injustice have revived mainstream debate over Mississippi‘s state flag, which includes the Confederate battle flag alongside red, white and blue bands.

Now several powerful organisations in the Republican-controlled state – including Southern baptists and retail giant Walmart – are pressuring officials to consider new designs.

The Mississippi Baptist Convention Board (MBCB), the state’s largest religious congregation with more than 500,000 members and 2,100 churches, has called for a “change to the current flag in order to mitigate the hurt that its symbolism entails”.

“It has become apparent that the discussion about changing the state flag of Mississippi is not merely a political issue,” Shawn Parker, executive director and treasurer of the MBCB, announced at a press conference on Tuesday. “While some may see the current flag as a celebration of heritage, a significant portion of our state sees it as a relic of racism and a symbol of hate. The racial overtones of the flag’s appearance makes this discussion a moral issue.”

Nearly 40 per cent of the state’s population of 3 million people is black.

Invoking several verses of scripture, Mr Parker said: “For those who follow Christ, to stand by indifferently and allow this to exist, is inconsistent with [his] teachings.”

Walmart, which has 65 stores and employs more than 20,000 people in Mississippi, has announced it will not fly the flag at its shops, aligning with a 2015 policy that forbids sales of items that feature the Confederate flag.

In a statement, the company said: “We believe it’s the right thing to do, and is consistent with Walmart’s position to not sell merchandise with the Confederate flag from stores and online sites, as part of our commitment to provide a welcoming and inclusive experience for all of our customers in the communities we serve.”

Last week, the NCAA announced it would not hold any major events in the state until the Confederate battle flag was stripped from the flag. Several athletes also have refused to play in the state in protest.

Mississippi’s governor has attempted to shut down the debate. In a statement, Tate Reeves said he believed plans to create a new flag “would actually divide our state more”. He called the proposed new design “the ‘separate but equal’ flag option”, in reference to the old phrase used to defend racial segregation.

Mr Reeves has said he would be reluctant to make any executive decisions on the flag’s future without a vote.

In a 2001 special election to consider new designs, more than 60 per cent of voters supported the current flag, which has been in place since 1894.

In that year relatives of Confederate soldiers sought to undermine Reconstruction efforts across the South, nearly three decades after the US Civil War.

Previous flag designs included a magnolia tree against a white background and a white star on a blue square, a reference to the Confederacy’s Blue Bonnie flag.

Debate over the flag persisted in the decades that followed, and integration efforts rekindled white supremacist violence under the banners of the Confederate and state flags.

Several legislative attempts in the 1980s and 1990s to consider removing the battle flag from the state flag were shot down without debate.

Following the murders of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina by a white supremacist in 2014, Mississippi’s public universities and several jurisdictions stopped flying the flag.