News Releases

On Wednesday, March 2, at noon, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History will host legislators for a special History Is Lunch program–Finding Common Ground: Lawmakers and the New Flag. Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, Senator Briggs Hopson, Senator Derrick Simmons, and Representative Robert Johnson will discuss the process of adopting the new Mississippi flag.

“MDAH was proud to support the Flag Commission in its historic work,” said MDAH director Katie Blount. “We are happy to be hosting legislators for History Is Lunch to talk about the transformation that the new flag has brought to our state.”

In 2020, the Mississippi legislature passed a bill that removed the 126-year-old state flag and created a commission that would be responsible for choosing a new design to be on the November statewide ballot.

The design selected by the commission was supported overwhelmingly by the voters, ratified by the legislature as the new state flag, and signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves. This program will take place in the auditorium of the Two Mississippi Museums, the same room where the flag commission met and the bill signing took place.

MDAH livestreams videos of the program at noon on Wednesdays click here.

To view this event after air time click here.

The weekly History Is Lunch lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson.