A green field cut by a white cross, and at the crossing a blue disc bearing a golden star. The city gives itself an optimistic nickname, "City with Soul." But Jackson faces an existential crisis.
Water. The aging water system collapses regularly. In 2022, the main treatment plant failed, leaving the city without drinking water for weeks. Boil-water notices are frequent. It is a crisis of environmental justice in a majority-Black city.
Jackson played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement. Medgar Evers, leader of the NAACP, was assassinated in front of his home in 1963 by a white supremacist. The trial (the killer was not convicted until 1994) came to symbolize white resistance to justice.
The sit-ins at the Woolworth lunch counter (1963), protesters covered in food, beaten, shocked the nation.
Jackson also has a musical history: the Mississippi Blues Trail runs through the city. Elmore James and Little Milton were born here. Malaco Records, the legendary soul/blues label, is based in Jackson.
But the decline is brutal. White flight emptied the tax base. The infrastructure is crumbling. Jackson struggles to survive.
The flag shows nothing of these struggles, just an official facade for a capital in crisis.