State Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, said U.S. Sen. Trent Lott has hurt Mississippi, but should not resign. Flaggs also said he’d like to hear some black Republicans speak up.

At a 100th birthday event for retiring U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., a week ago, Lott said Mississippi was proud of its 1948 vote for Thurmond when he ran for president on a segregationist platform.

Flaggs indicated that instead of harking to the past, Lott should be explaining what he thinks about his state today.

“We have 45 African-Americans in the state Legislature, and we have more African-Americans appointed by the governor than at any time in the history of Mississippi,” Flaggs said.

“Sen. Lott has not convinced me at this point that he was not being political when he made those statements. He cannot continue to represent us or the nation if that is the direction he thinks we should go, but I am willing to give him a second chance.”

Flaggs, senior in Vicksburg’s delegation to Jackson, stopped short of calls for Lott’s resignation issued by many blacks in leadership positions.

“I do not think that Sen. Lott needs to resign,” he said. “However, I do encourage him to go to the floor of the United States Senate and explain his position and extend an apology to the nation.”

Thurmond, then a “Dixiecrat” Democrat, carried Mississippi in the election eventually won by Harry Truman.

Thurmond began to change his stance on race, beginning in the mid- to late 1960s, political collections archivist Alan Burns of South Carolina’s Clemson University said. By the early to mid-1970s, Thurmond, who has served a record 48 years in the Senate, was hiring and encouraging the appointments to public offices of blacks, Burns said.

“I want to say this about my state,” Lott said at the party. “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

State Rep. Chester Masterson, R-Vicksburg, declined comment on Lott’s comments or what he should do, and state Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg, was not available.