Mississippi State running back Kylin Hill claims that he will not play football at the school unless the State of Mississippi removes the Confederate battle flag from its state banner.
On Monday, Hill took to his Twitter page to tell followers, “Either change the flag or I won’t be representing this State anymore 100 percent & I meant that .. I’m tired,” The Hill reported.
The college student responded a note from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R), who was writing about an effort to change the state’s flag.
The current Mississippi state flag was adopted in 1894 to include the Confederate Southern Cross in the flag’s canton.
Hill was thought likely to attempt to turn pro in the 2020 NFL Draft but instead returned to college for his senior year.
The player’s tirade aside, the state’s flag has become an issue with the National Collegiate Athletic Association which announced that it intended to expand its policy on Confederate symbols to ban states that contain the symbol on their state banner from holding collegiate championship events.
Mississippi is the only state that still has a vestige of the Confederate flag on its official banner, though Alabama and Florida’s evoke the Confederate symbol. Georgia removed the Confederate emblem from its flag in 2003.
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