By JACKSON CARPENTER

NATCHEZ — Some Natchez members of a group working to bridge the racial divide in Mississippi said Tuesday Mississippi should remove the vestiges of the Confederate battle flag from the state’s official flag.Mississippi Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, a Republican, on Monday called for Mississippi to remove the Confederate emblem from the state flag. Others on Tuesday chimed in, including Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who said voters, not lawmakers, should make any decision concerning the state flag.

Gov. Phil Bryant said on Monday he supports the election results of 2001, when Mississippi voters chose 2-to-1 to keep the present Mississippi flag design.

Mission Mississippi is a group operating in communities throughout Mississippi seeking to unite black and white community members.

Nancy Hungerford, executive director of the Natchez Children Home Services, is a member of Mission Mississippi in Natchez. She is also a native of South Carolina.

Because of her close ties to South Carolina, Hungerford said she has paid close attention to the Charleston tragedy. Hungerford said she had the same reaction to the shooting that she has when any unstable person goes on a rampage.

“We never needed to work on behavior and mental conditions with children and adults more than now,” she said.

Hungerford said she thinks South Carolina needs to remove the Confederate battle flag from its capitol, and thinks it is time for Mississippi to redesign its state flag, too.

“I think it’s time for the flag to be retired. It’s not a friendly symbol, and it needs to be folded up and put back where it belongs in history,” she said.

Hungerford said the emblem of the Confederacy causes a division between races.

“We need a flag that’s more inclusive,” she said.

Marsha Colson, also involved with Mission Mississippi in Natchez, agrees with Hungerford.

Colson, who lives in her family house antebellum Lansdowne, has roots in Natchez that reach back to the Confederacy and beyond.

She said the Confederate emblem on the Mississippi flag is a symbol of oppression, injustice and death.

“It is a stained and tainted symbol,” Colson said. “If I was an African American living under that flag, I would be uncomfortable.”

Mississippi needs to move forward, she said.

“It needs to come down,” Colson said. “It’s been too long, done too much damage, and it’s time to come down. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make people change. Some good will come of this Charleston tragedy.”

Darryl White, director of the Natchez Museum of African American History and Culture, said his reaction to the Charleston shooting was one of shock and disbelief “that that type of atrocity is still possible based solely on race.”

White also thinks the design of the Mississippi flag needs to be revisited.

“I understand there are people connected to that flag historically and emotionally. However, it is considered a flag of treason. When the war was all over, there were still those who believed the South will rise again,” White said. “I feel strongly they need to give up the lost cause because it is no longer relevant.”

He said it was only after the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education that many in Southern states began to embrace the Confederate battle flag.

“You have a right to fly it, but the state government shouldn’t be flying that flag,” White said. “With the attention of the individual who took the lives of nine God-fearing, church-going people solely because of their race, and he wrapped himself in that image. The war ended 150 years ago, I think it is time to put that flag to rest.”

Beverly Adams, who is active in the Natchez Mission Mississippi group, said it’s time Mississippi change its flag design.

“I was very shocked it passed 65 percent to keep the flag,” Adams said of the vote in 2001. “It’s a symbol of hatred and slavery.”