South Carolina rebel flag removed
Print Edition
SOUTH Carolina yesterday permanently removed the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds, sending away the rebel banner that is a symbol of slavery and racism to many but of Southern heritage and pride to others.
The banner, which went up on the State House grounds more than half a century ago at the height of the US civil rights movement, was removed shortly after 10am local time before a large crowd and live TV cameras.
The relocation of the flag came a little over three weeks after the racially motivated massacre of nine black worshippers during a Bible study session on June 17 at a landmark black church in Charleston.
The banner’s new home will be the “relic room” of the state military museum in Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, where the flag will reside with other artifacts carried by Southern Confederate soldiers 150 years ago in the Civil War.
South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley, who pushed for the state legislature to enact a law making it possible to remove the flag, was among those watching its departure from its place just yards from the State House entrance.
Earlier, she called it a great day for the state in an interview with NBC’s “Today” television show.
“I’m thinking of those nine people today,” Haley said, referring to the nine men and women gunned down at Charleston’s African Methodist Episcopal church.
The white man charged in the killings, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, appeared in photographs posing with a Confederate flag that surfaced on a website bearing a racist manifesto. The image spurred politicians and leading national retailers to pull the flag from display.
In South Carolina, the first state to secede during the 1861-1865 US Civil War, this week’s debate in the state legislature brought an emotional closure to a symbol long divisive in the state.
The Confederate flag waved atop the state capitol from 1961 to 2000, when it was moved to a Confederate war memorial near the State House entrance.
“In South Carolina we honor tradition, we honor history, we honor heritage. But there’s a place for that flag and that flag needs to be in a museum, where we will continue to make sure that people can honor it appropriately,” Haley said.
“But the statehouse — that’s an area that belongs to everyone,” she added. “No one should drive by the statehouse and feel pain.”
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