When Judge James Graves Jr. became a Mississippi trial judge in 1991, one side of his bench had the state flag with its Confederate Battle emblem. Twenty years later, joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, that same flag flew, he said.

In a dissent Wednesday in a case challenging a Jim Crow-era law, Graves, who is Black, recounted his personal experiences growing up during that time period, and the reminders of it he faced on the bench.