As I've said before, when Dylan Rooff was caught after the shooting in Charleston, he said he had wanted to start a race war. The NAACP immediately obliged him but without real racists to be found, they instead declared war on southern history, and now so does Steve Earle.
Arriving at the tail end of a summer that saw the rebel flag yanked from
government grounds across the south, "Mississippi, It's Time" tackles
racism, war, slavery, patriotism and progression in less than three
minutes. "Mississippi, don't you reckon its time that the flag came
down?" Earle sings during the first verse, directly addressing the lone
state that has refused to abandon its government-sponsored Confederate
imagery in light of the June 17th mass shooting at
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South
Carolina. While the song never mentions the church massacre, its
influence is felt throughout.
