Rogelio V. Solis / AP"The New Magnolia" flag chosen on Sept. 2, 2020 by the Mississippi State Flag Commission flies outside the Old State Capitol Museum in downtown Jackson. 

Mississippians will vote on whether to approve a new state flag design on Nov. 3.

In late June, the Mississippi legislature voted to retire the 1894 flag, which contains the Confederate battle emblem. An appointed commission then had to decide on a new design for the flag, and they ultimately choose a flag containing a magnolia flower, according to Mississippi Today.

Voters will be asked on the ballot whether the new design should be the state’s flag. If the flag is not approved, the commission would have to choose another design and present it to voters next year, according to Mississippi Today.

State Rep. Charles Young (D-District 82) said the Confederate emblem flag has been a symbol of hatred.

“I am happy that we are transitioning into a new era for Mississippi,” he said.

Young’s father, Charles Young Sr., participated in the civil rights movement. Young said the Ku Klux Klan tried to invoke terror on his father and his family.

“The history of Mississippi for my family has been one of darkness and turmoil in a lot of instances,” he said.

Young hopes that the new flag would mean opportunity for Mississippi.

“I would hope that the rest of the country and the rest of the world would look at Mississippi as having new and broader horizons,” he said, “and that those horizons create opportunities for business and opportunities for employment and opportunities for prosperity.”

Support for removing the 1894 flag grew in the business community this year. In June, a Mississippi Economic Council full-page newspaper ad, which was published in The Meridian Star and in other papers, urged legislators to adopt a new flag. Bill Hannah, president and CEO of the East Mississippi Business Development Corporation, was among those whose signatures were included in the ad.

“We’re trying to remove all hurdles for anybody that’s considering investment in our community,” he said. ”This has become a hurdle and so we want to remove it … I feel and I think our board feels it’s not only the right time, but it’s the right thing to do.”

The new flag includes 20 white stars, which represent Mississippi’s status as the twentieth state. The gold star on the flag represents the first peoples, or the Native Americans who occupied Mississippi before it became a state, said Cyrus Ben, tribal chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

The gold star is made up of diamonds. Ben said diamonds are common in Choctaw basketry, beadwork and clothing. The shape signifies the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, which occupied farm fields.

“The Eastern diamondback rattlesnake would be able to address some of the rodents that … would be of harm to the crop,” he said.

Ben was a member of the commission that chose the flag’s design. Nearly 3,000 designs for the flag were submitted, and the commission narrowed the number of options down to two by late August, according to Mississippi Today. The commission voted in early September to chose the flag with a magnolia blossom.

“I think that through the collaborative effort of the commission, that we’ve been able to come up with a flag that represents us very well, that can fly alongside the other 49 states,” Ben said, “and represent each and every one of us well.”

Erin Kelly contributed to this report.