When the state of Mississippi last asked its voters to determine the future of its controversial state flag, Trey Lamar was but a 21-year-old walk-on running back at Ole Miss. Despite his busy fall schedule as a college football player, Lamar traveled to his local polling precinct to weigh in on a topic he felt passionately about. When he got there, he voted to keep a flag that prominently features the Confederate battle emblem.
Nearly two decades later, now a grizzled senator in the Mississippi Legislature, Lamar feels much differently about that flag. “God shows you things,” says Lamar, a white Republican from North Mississippi.