South Carolina to remove Confederate flag
Print Edition
More than 50 years after South Carolina raised a Confederate flag at its Statehouse to protest the civil rights movement, the state is getting ready to remove the rebel banner.
A bill pulling down the flag from the Capitol’s front lawn and the flagpole it flies on passed the South Carolina House early yesterday morning. Governor Nikki Haley said she would sign it into law later in the day in the Statehouse lobby. And her spokesman Chaney Adams said the flag would come down in a ceremony scheduled for today.
There were hugs, tears and high fives in the House chamber after the vote. Members who waited decades to see this day snapped selfies and pumped their fists. But even among the celebrations, there was more than a bit of sadness.
After the Civil War, the flag was first flown over the dome of South Carolina’s Capitol in Columbia in 1961 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the war. It stayed as a protest to the Civil Rights movement, only moving in 2000 from the dome to its current location.
The push that would bring down the Confederate flag for good only started after nine black churchgoers, including Senator Clementa Pinckney, were gunned down during Bible study at the historic Emanuel African Episcopal Church in Charleston on June 17. Police said the white gunman’s motivation was racial hatred. Then three days later, photos surfaced of the suspect, Dylann Roof, holding Confederate flags.
“I am 44 years old. I never thought I’d see this moment. I stand with people who never thought they would see this as well,” said House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford. “It’s emotional for us not just because it came down, but why it came down.”
Republican Representative Rick Quinn, whose amendment appeared it might at least delay the flag’s removal for several hours, was happy too after getting a promise that lawmakers would find money for a special display at the Relic Room for the Confederate flag that was about to be removed as well as the one that flew over the Statehouse dome in 2000 when a compromise was passed to move the rebel banner to its current location. “It was done in a way that was a win to everyone,” said Quinn, who voted for the bill.
The back-to-back votes came around 1am yesterday after more than 13 hours of passionate and contentious debate.
Changing the Senate bill could have meant it taking weeks or even months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting momentum that has grown since the church massacre.
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