A Confederate flag was mistakenly raised for a few hours over the Mississippi Supreme Court in Jackson on Friday.
A replacement was needed for a Mississippi state flag that was tattered and torn, Kym Wiggins, public information officer for the state Department of Fiance and Administration told the Clarion-Ledger.
Calling the incident, "highly unusual," Wiggins explained to the paper that a local vendor was tasked with the job of purchasing new state flags to replace the one that was torn. Wiggins claims they were given two boxes labeled "Mississippi State Flag," but the boxes actually contained Confederate naval battle flags. After a maintenance worker raised the flag, the mistake went unnoticed for a couple of hours.
Part of the problem may have been that Mississippi state flag features the old Confederate flag's saltire along with three horizontal stripes in red, white and blue.
"Without the wind blowing, you know, it's about a 10-by-15-foot flag," Wiggins explained to MSNBC's Maddow Blog. "You don't hook it on and lay it out flat first. The bars and stars do show in the upper left corner."
According to The Associated Press, Mississippi is the last state with a flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem -- a symbol that has been on the state flag since 1894 -- and it's a symbol Mississippi voters fought to keep. In a 2001 statewide election, voters decided nearly 2-to-1 to keep the emblem.
Clarification: The flag raised over the Mississippi Supreme Court was more specifically a Confederate naval battle flag.
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