Race, the “New South,” and the Mississippi Flag Vote

On April 17, 2001, Mississippians went to the polls and voted by a margin of about two to one to retain a state flag that included a representation of the Confederate battle flag. In many ways, the controversy developed along lines consistent with perspectives on southern politics offered by political scientists in recent years. This study examines the Mississippi flag campaign and vote from the vantage point provided by the “New South‐Old South” perspective on contemporary southern politics and finds that it fits well. Applying Ecological Inference to precinct‐level data that combines Census data with flag referendum data, the essay concludes that black turnout was noticeably lighter than normal but that only about ten percent of Mississippi's African Americans who voted cast ballots in support of the old flag; it also finds that while white support for the new flag was generally low, it was about twice as high in counties with sizeable numbers of college graduates than in other counties. The inability of two major pre‐referendum surveys to correctly estimate the low level of black support for the old flag is most likely due to a failure to identify adequately the relatively small numbers of likely voters from among the many persons interviewed.