The instant Mississippi voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure to wipe the Confederate emblem from their state flag, NAACP officials threatened to call a boycott of the state�s tourism industry in May.

The minute they made their boycott threat I thought of the remark a good friend made to me a few years back during my visit to Atlanta.

She was a well-educated, politically involved professional. While driving down one of the city�s thoroughfares, I noted Georgia�s state flag fluttering on street polls. The Confederate emblem was embedded in the flag. I asked whether Blacks were enraged by it. She laughed and casually said, "That�s their thing, let them have it, we�ve got bigger problems than a flag to deal with."

During my stay in Atlanta, I asked several other Blacks whether they found the flag offensive. The answers were the same. To them, the Confederate flag was an empty symbol of a dead past. They felt that there were bigger problems for Blacks to be concerned about.

Their sentiment seemed wildly at odds with the official stance of the NAACP and other civil rights leaders. They have turned the flag fight into a virtual holy crusade.

They, and much of the press, swore that the Mississippi flag vote was a referendum on slavery and white supremacy. It was far from that. In March, an Associated Press poll found that nearly half of the state�s Blacks supported the flag or were undecided about changing it.

The final vote confirmed that. In six majority Black counties, Blacks voted by the barest of margins to dump the old flag. But in three Mississippi Delta counties, with a heavy Black majority, the vote was to retain the flag.

There are three compelling reasons why many Blacks back the Confederate flag or are indifferent to it.

Antique Symbol. The Confederate flag was a non-issue for decades for most Southern Blacks until the 1950s, when Southern segregationists defiantly hoisted it on statehouses as a symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. NAACP officials, and other civil rights groups aimed their protests and legal campaigns at segregation, political disfranchisement and murderous racial violence, not the Confederate flag. The 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts, the 1965 Voting Rights Act broke the back of legal segregation, and enfranchised Blacks. The wave of federal and state racial hate crime laws in the 1970s gave state and federal authorities the legal weapons to crack down on racial hate terrorists. In Mississippi, prosecutors began exorcising the state�s murderous past by convicting and slapping a life sentence on white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in 1994 for the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Alabama authorities are trying to reconcile its deadly past by bringing to trial Thomas Blanton, Jr. for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that killed four Black girls. In other Southern states, prosecutors have gotten or are seeking convictions in 19 cases for the murder of Blacks or civil rights workers in the 1960s.

Economic Pain. The NAACP claimed that its much publicized boycott of South Carolina last year to force state officials to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol building drained $100 million from the state�s tourist industry. But the boycott was a double-edged sword for some Blacks. Several presidents of historically Black colleges, Black politicians, food and service company owners and entertainment promoters privately complained that the boycott badly pinched their purse, and cost jobs for Blacks. In Mississippi, a similar boycott could be even worse for Blacks. The tourism industry bankrolls a major part of the state�s budget. It reduces the yearly tax bill by about $250 for all Mississippi residents. The gaming industry nets about $3.1 billion and provides 10 percent of the state�s budget. A hit against it would also increase taxes, and force job lay-offs. The state legislature and business groups have cut deals with car plants, hi-tech companies and manufacturing companies to relocate, or build new plants, in the state. These industries would create thousands of jobs and benefits for Blacks. A boycott could jeopardize those deals.

Sideshow Issue. In 1999 Mississippi Blacks ranked at rock bottom in income in America and at, or near, the top in school dropout, infant mortality, and victim of violence rates in the nation. In the past decade, dozens of Mississippi Black farmers have had their farms foreclosed on by bankers and government agencies. The state�s historically Black colleges waged a twenty-six year titanic legal battle to force the state to equalize spending. Even if Mississippi state officials defied the popular vote and dumped the flag in a museum, it would be a pyrrhic victory. It would not save one Black farm, improve failing public schools, increase funds for Black colleges, create more jobs, or reduce poverty.

The thousands of Mississippi Blacks that backed the old Confederate flag understood that.

(Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of "The Disappearance of Black Leadership," is president of the National Alliance for Positive Action.)