JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Mississippi is on the verge of changing its state flag to erase a Confederate battle emblem that’s broadly condemned as racist.

Republican Sen. Joseph Seymour of Vancleave, left, strains to listen to fellow Republican Briggs Hopson present a resolution that would allow lawmakers to change the state flag, while Rep. Orlando Paden, D-Clarksdale uses his smartphone to record the presentation Saturday, June 27, 2020 at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss.

White supremacists in the Mississippi Legislature set the state flag design in 1894 during backlash to the political power that African Americans gained after the Civil War.

Democratic Sen. Hillman Frazier, of Jackson, speaks in support of a resolution that would allow lawmakers to change the state flag, Saturday, June 27, 2020, at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss.

The current flag has in the canton portion of the banner the design of the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag, that has been the center of a long-simmering debate about its removal or replacement.