NAACP banquet keynoter adds his voice to calls for new state flag

Pascagoula -- National radio talk-show host Joe Madison got to the heart of a Mississippi controversy during his keynote address at Friday’s Moss Point-Jackson County NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet at the Hilton Garden Inn. He declared his support for the efforts of Curley Clark, president of the NAACP chapter, to have the Confederate battle emblem removed from the Mississippi flag.

“Do you really want to maintain that emblem as your symbol in this modern world?” Madison, who’s known as The Black Eagle, asked the audience of about 200 black and white residents. Noting 74 percent of the world’s population is people of color, he disputed the argument by advocates of the Confederate emblem that it’s a matter of preserving one’s heritage.

Evoking images of today’s competitive global economy, he said: “The question now has to be asked in 2017, living in a town in which you have global businesses, they want to know if they live in a town that’s part of the 21st century or still living in the 19th century.

“It’s how you are viewed, Mississippi, to the rest of the world.”

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/counties/jackson-county/article146185989.html