The Colonel Reb mascot was the official mascot of the University of Mississippi, commonly known as Ole Miss, from 1979 to 2003. Named after Colonel Reb, a fictional character who represented a Confederate colonel, the mascot became a symbol of the university's Southern heritage and tradition. However, in the early 2000s, the mascot became controversial and was eventually retired due to its association with racism and the Confederacy. Colonel Reb was known for his old-fashioned attire, including a Confederate-style uniform and a feathered hat. He was often seen at sporting events, cheering on the Ole Miss Rebels, the university's sports teams. The mascot was beloved by many students, alumni, and fans, who saw it as a representation of the university's history and the South's rich cultural heritage.
Mississippi's Colonel Reb: Gone but not forgotten
The mascot was beloved by many students, alumni, and fans, who saw it as a representation of the university's history and the South's rich cultural heritage. However, as society became more aware of issues of racism and the negative connotations associated with Confederate imagery, the Colonel Reb mascot started to face criticism. Many argued that the mascot glorified a time of institutionalized racism and oppression.
Race, football and Obamacare: Conservative talk radio brings all great things together
By Andrew Leonard
Published September 30, 2011 6:02PM (EDT)
"Colonel Reb," former mascot for the University of Mississippi college football teamShares
Like most liberal Berkeley, Calif. residents, I am an avid follower of Southeastern Conference college football, which means I often find myself spending my lunch hour catching up on the latest news about tree poisonings in Auburn or Lane "Lame" Kiffen's cheating escapades at Tennessee. But it's just not every day that my consideration of LSU's awesome defensive line is interrupted by new revelations about the intersection of Deep South college football and the conservative right-wing campaign to demonize Barack Obama as the Socialist Bringer-of-Death.
But hey, everything's connected, right? Race, the Confederacy, conservative talk radio, the rise of the Republican South, health care, Jeremiah Wright, and college football? Of course it is.
The Ole Miss -- University of Mississippi -- college football team is suffering through its second horrible year in a row. At any SEC school, that's a recipe for serious alumni dissatisfaction. But at Ole Miss, the heat is extraordinary. A group calling itself the "Forward Rebels" (Ole Miss's nickname is "Rebels") has been running full-page ads in local newspapers calling for new leadership and "change" at the university. The U. Miss. chancellor is lashing back at "anonymous, malicious and public attacks." It's a mess, but while the Forward Rebel ire is ostensibly aimed at athletic director Pete Boone's responsibility for mismanaging the program, (and he does seems to be something of a buffoon,) it's pretty clear that the bad fortunes of the Rebels aren't the only, or even most important, reason for the disgruntlement. Culture war is alive and well in Mississippi.
According to long time Mississippi sports reporter Rick Cleveland, the breach between the alumni and Pete Boone dates back to the furor a few years back about the Ole Miss mascot "Colonel Reb." Boone was largely responsible for ditching the mascot, and he had a pretty good reason -- the perception that top African-American high school players were not crazy about the prospect of playing for a football team that routinely drenched itself in Confederate nostalgia.
Seriously, if I was a high school All-American 6 foot four 250 pound linebacker being recruited by every top football college in America, I'd probably have second thoughts about going to a school where the fans sing Dixie at the games, wave Confederate flags, and cheer a mascot representing a solider who defended the right to keep slavery legal in America.
But for Colonel Reb's defenders, the theory about competitiveness is just a politically correct smokescreen by liberals who want to trample all over Ole Miss' great traditions. Mississippi's backward economy and also-ran status in the SEC explained the lack of top recruits -- not the Confederacy trappings.
Rick Cleveland brought up the issue of Colonel Reb with the Forward Rebels spokesman, Lee Habeeb.
Said Lee Habeeb, "As far as Colonel Rebel, we don't have a dog in that hunt. Our people aren't driven by that."
Habeeb also said, "At the same time, this is an administration that makes decisions unencumbered by how the public feels."
Make of that statement what you may.
And here's where the story breaks out of the football/race box.
Lee Habeeb is a mogul of conservative talk radio. He was responsible for bringing Laura Ingraham to national prominence, and he is the "Network Director of Strategic Content" for the Salem Radio Network, which boasts a who's who of right wing blowhards on its roster, including Bill Bennett, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt.
According to Habeeb's Wikipedia page, Habeeb has "commissioned several hit YouTube videos," including one on Barack Obama's relationship with Pastor Jeremiah Wright -- titled "Is Obama Wright?" -- that ran during the 2008 election campaign. He's also "produced the video 'Is Nationalized Health Care a Death Snare?' about the effects a government takeover of health care would have on both beginning of life and end of life issues."
If you are a liberal resident of Berkeley, California, you probably think that Lee Habeeb is the definition of bad news. And I'll be perfectly frank: learning that he is the spokesman for a group that feels that the University of Mississippi administration "makes decisions unencumbered by how the people feels" certainly makes it easy for me to decide who to root for in this gridiron showdown. But the larger symbolic meaning of this debacle is a heck of a lot more profound than any SEC won-lost record.
The rise of the Republican-dominated South as a direct consequence of Lyndon Johnson's passage of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights legislation is one of the most important political developments of the past half-century. Southern Republicans are the backbone of a party that has grown ever more conservative and reactionary. Conservative talk radio aids, abets, and enables this right-wing calcification, a process that has utterly crippled the Obama administration's agenda.
Mississippi, a state as stained by slavery's legacy as any in the nation -- is where all the pieces fit together. Don't listen to Habeeb's equivocations -- the squabble over Colonel Reb undoubtedly feeds alumni dissatisfaction, just as Obama's skin color feeds criticism of his legitimacy.
It's a cliche to say the North may have won the Civil War, but we're still fighting it today in 21st century. But when you connect the dots between Southern Republican resistance to Obama and the fight over Colonel Reb in Mississippi, it's hard to come to any other conclusion.
What Colonel Reb means to me
I grew up as one of the biggest little fans of Ole Miss sports. I donned Rebel gear for school, and I made sure my friends who supported Mississippi State were well aware of each Ole Miss success. I had a stuffed dog named Rebel, which has great sentimental value to me. On the Christmas tree every year, I would hang a Col. Reb ornament with my name on it.
When Col. Reb was removed from the sidelines, I was too young to really know what it meant. As I grew up, I still ardently supported the school without a mascot. I tried to explain to people what Col. Reb meant to me as a mascot, including being in the Grove on game days and getting high-fives as he led the team down the Walk of Champions.
When the decision was made to determine a new on-field mascot, I was not exactly thrilled. I understood Ole Miss’ need for a mascot. After all, I wanted little Rebels to have a physical embodiment of the Ole Miss spirit as I had growing up, even if it wasn’t the character that I enjoyed as a child. While I am not exactly enamored with the Black Bear mascot, it isn’t meant for me. I understand that, and I am OK with that.
On the other hand, I am not OK with the recent decision to remove the title of Col. Reb from the personality elections. I am told it is because the title is blatantly racist. I am told that Ole Miss is moving forward. I am told that anyone who continues to support the title is clinging to a war that was lost and is backward thinking.
Finally, I am told that I must be cognizant of the feelings of others. Since others dislike the title of Col. Reb, then I should respect that and approve its removal. What is missing, though, is a respect for what Col. Reb means to me.
Even further, what does Col. Reb mean to Ole Miss? Every year since 1940, the student body has elected a Col. Reb: a male on campus who best embodies the spirit of the university. Notable alumni like Robert Khayat, former Ole Miss chancellor, and Ben Williams, the first black football player at Ole Miss, were honored with the Col. Reb title during their tenures on campus.
Ole Miss is currently on a slippery slope. It started with things that absolutely needed to be banned, such as the Confederate flag — or, well, sticks. It then moved on to a misunderstood mascot. Next was “From Dixie with Love.” Now it’s the Col. Reb title. What is next?
I have heard some say that this argument is nonsense, that it is missing the point. But I then read quotes like this from the chair of the African American Studies Department, which was included in the ESPN film “The Ghosts of Ole Miss”: “Any symbol that can be remotely construed or interpreted as having any kind of racial insensitivity should be eradicated.”
With people, especially employees of the university, saying things like that, am I really so clueless to make the slippery slope argument here? I honestly do not believe so, and if you look at what has been done and what is being said around you, I think you would agree.
Trenton Winford is a junior public policy leadership major from Madison.
The Root: Time For Ole Miss' Mascot To Go
Students and alumni of that venerable Southern institution Ole Miss are currently reeling at the news that the university has decided to replace its controversial mascot, Colonel Reb, a white-bearded Confederate Army officer, with an as-yet-undetermined new one -- a horse, perhaps. To many, abandoning the controversial colonel, who hasn't been the school's official mascot since 2003, makes sense. Even if just some among the Ole Miss student body -- 14 percent of which is black -- are offended by Reb, then he cannot represent the school as a whole.
Nevertheless, a group of stalwarts is refusing to back down. One student group, the Colonel Reb Foundation, has already gathered thousands of signatures to protest Reb's expulsion. And when The New York Times interviewed fans at a recent Ole Miss football game, the resistance to a new mascot was obvious: " 'Over. My. Dead. Body,' said Mack Allen, 36, an alumnus and technology analyst from Memphis, who wore a T-shirt to a recent football game that read, 'Colonel Reb -- Loved by Many, Hated by Few.' "
Like the movement to keep the Confederate flag on government buildings in South Carolina, the Colonel Reb fight is yet another public instance of a group of proud Southerners standing together to fight for their right to show nostalgia for the Old South. And just as I did about the movement to keep the Confederate flag alive, I can't help asking myself once again, "What's there to be nostalgic for?"
In Chapter 9 of Harriet Ann Jacobs' firsthand account of bondage in North Carolina, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs describes a punishment inflicted upon a male slave who had been caught fleeing a neighboring plantation:
Some weeks after his escape, he was captured, tied, and carried back to his master's plantation. This man considered punishment in his jail, on bread and water, after receiving hundreds of lashes, too mild for the poor slave's offence. Therefore he decided, after the overseer should have whipped him to his satisfaction, to have him placed between the screws of the cotton gin, to stay as long as he had been in the woods. This wretched creature was cut with the whip from his head to his foot, then washed with strong brine, to prevent the flesh from mortifying, and make it heal sooner than it otherwise would. He was then put into the cotton gin, which was screwed down, only allowing him room to turn on his side when he could not lie on his back. Every morning a slave was sent with a piece of bread and bowl of water, which were placed within reach of the poor fellow. The slave was charged, under penalty of severe punishment, not to speak to him … The master who did these things was highly educated, and styled a perfect gentleman. He also boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower.
I like to think of this story, the tale of a good Southern chap who dabbled in torture, whenever I read something about people paying reverence to the South of old. In my estimation, it very tidily summarizes the type of man Ole Miss' Colonel Reb might very well have been, if he were a real person: a wealthy, august gentleman, who incidentally fought under a terrorist banner for the right to own blacks, but also considered African Americans to be so subhuman that he could slaughter them at will, and by whatever gruesome means he fancied.
Southern apologists -- like Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) in his Wall Street Journal piece "Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege" -- like to bandy the statistic that fewer than five percent of whites below the Mason-Dixon Line owned slaves, the subtext being that the rest of the South's whites were as hard off as blacks and, in Webb's words, "dominated by white elites who manipulated racial tensions in order to retain power." (Apparently, to Webb, being poor is comparable to being whipped nearly to death before being squeezed into a cotton gin and starved for weeks at a time.)
Somehow, it seems that Webb and others like him have never considered what else that statistic could mean: that more than 95 percent of white Southerners were complicit in one of humanity's greatest crimes, a crime that, if they'd decided to rise up against it, as their Yankee counterparts eventually did, they could easily have ended.
So why didn't this overwhelming majority of Southerners stage a John Brown-style rebellion en masse, or even a major but bloodless nonviolent protest? That's because, whether he owned slaves or not, the antebellum white Southerner operated under the belief that blacks were animals at best, demons at worst.
Simply consider the way that whites of all classes banded together in the decades after the Civil War to beat, terrorize, lynch, disenfranchise and, once again, torture the newly freed blacks in their midst; then try to rationalize that 95 percent of whites actually wanted to live in harmony with people of color. This is as ridiculous as saying that because the vast majority of Germans didn't work in concentration camps, it's clear that they were friends to the Jews.
Saying that the Civil War was all about slavery is inaccurate and reductionist, to be sure. That said, it was enough about slavery that it is wholly offensive when modern Southerners latch onto outrageous totems like Colonel Reb and the Confederate flag. Say what you will about heritage, but a large part of the Confederacy was hate -- an unvarnished, unreasonable hate that was responsible for the death of millions.
If the South would like to draw on more positive aspects of its history to sentimentalize itself, it should look toward its rich cuisine or its cotillion culture. The Ole Miss beaus may not be as fearsome as a retired Confederate colonel who murdered black people for amusement, but is that old colonel a prototype worth celebrating anymore in a truly civilized and advanced society?
We shouldn't gloss over the fact that some antebellum Northerners owned slaves, or that modern citizens of Boston and New York can be as cruelly racist as any bigot you'll find in Mississippi or Alabama. But the simple fact is that nowhere else in America will you come across so many people who are openly wistful about things and people that represent our nation's most embarrassing, most violent and ugliest period of time.
In Wisconsin, for instance, Gov. Jim Doyle recently signed into law a ban on Indian mascots in public schools, and the Los Angeles Unified School District enacted a similar ban back in 1998. Yet in Oxford, Miss., thousands of Ole Miss students and alumni are uniting to pay homage to Colonel Reb and
Students and faculty members protested the use of the mascot, calling for its retirement and the adoption of a more inclusive symbol. In 2003, the university decided to retire the Colonel Reb mascot and began the process of finding a new symbol. This decision was met with mixed reactions, with some supporting the change while others felt it was erasing an important part of the university's history. Ultimately, the university introduced a new mascot, the Rebel Black Bear, in 2010. The Rebel Black Bear is seen as a more inclusive and representative symbol, reflecting the university's commitment to diversity and inclusivity. The retirement of the Colonel Reb mascot marked a significant shift in attitudes towards Confederate symbols and their appropriateness in a modern, diverse society. It highlighted the need for institutions to reevaluate their use of controversial imagery and symbols, considering the impact they may have on marginalized communities. The Colonel Reb mascot will always remain a part of the university's history, but its retirement signifies a step towards progress and a more inclusive future..
Reviews for "Colonel Reb: A Reminder of Ole Miss' Complicated History"
1. Jane - 1/5 stars - I really disliked the Colonel Reb mascot. As a person of color, I found the mascot to be offensive and a symbol of a painful history of racism and discrimination. It's disheartening that a university would choose to have such a mascot, especially given the ongoing struggles for racial equality. I hope they reconsider and choose a more inclusive and respectful mascot that represents the diverse community of the university.
2. Mike - 2/5 stars - I didn't like the Colonel Reb mascot because it perpetuated stereotypes and represented an outdated image. The mascot seemed to glorify a particular era of history that is better left in the past. It didn't reflect the values and diversity of the university in a meaningful way. I believe it's time for universities to choose mascots that are more progressive and that can bring people together rather than divide them.
3. Sarah - 1/5 stars - The Colonel Reb mascot was one of the least appealing mascots I have ever seen. It felt like a throwback to a time that should be forgotten, with connotations of racism and oppression. It did not represent the university in a positive light and did not contribute to a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students. I think it was a poor choice and I'm glad it was eventually retired.