Rebel flag gone after 50 years
Divisive banner pulled from US Statehouse
COLUMBIA: South Carolina has removed the rebel Confederate flag from the Statehouse where it had flown for more than a half-century, a stunning turn after a final push sparked by the shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers.
The rebel banner was taken down yesterday morning by a Highway Patrol honour guard in a ceremony attended by thousands who cheered at the removal.
An armoured van took the flag to a state museum, where it eventually will be housed in a shrine lawmakers promised to build as part of a compromise to get the bill ordering the flag’s removal through the state Legislature.
The flag came down 23 days after the massacre of nine black people inside Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Authorities say they believe the killings were racially motivated. By posing with the Confederate flag before the shootings, suspect Dylann Storm Roof, who has not yet entered a plea to nine counts of murder, convinced some that the flag’s reputation for white supremacy and racial oppression had trumped its symbolism of Southern heritage and ancestral pride.
“People say he was wrapped in hate, that he was a hateful person,” said Democratic Representative Justin Bamberg. “Well, his hate was wrapped in the cloak of that Confederate flag. That is why that flag is coming down.”
South Carolina’s leaders first flew the rebel battle flag over the Statehouse dome in 1961 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, when the pro-slavery South seceded and fought the northern Union. It remained there to represent official opposition to the civil rights movement.
Decades later, mass protests against the flag by those who said it was a symbol of racism led to a compromise in 2000 with lawmakers who insisted that it symbolised Southern heritage. The two sides came to an agreement to move the flag from the dome to a pole next to a Confederate monument in front of the Statehouse.
Thousands of people showed up for that transfer. Flag supporters shouted at protesters who wanted the flag gone, a line of police in special gear separating the two sides. A pair of Citadel cadets, one white and one black, lowered the flag from the dome as a dozen Confederate re-enactors marched to the brand new flagpole and raised the rebel banner.
Supporters of the flag were disappointed, but resigned. “It’s just like the conclusion of the war itself,” said Mike Pitts, who submitted several amendments to fly a different flag on the pole that all failed. “The issue was settled, and the nation came back together to move on.”
States across the US are moving on without their Confederate symbols. The rebel flag is gone from the Alabama Capitol, and the US House of Representatives voted that it can no longer fly at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South. A city council committee in Memphis wants to move a statue and the remains of Civil War hero and slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest out of a prominent park, and officials in Alaska want a new moniker for a US Census district named after a Confederate general.
Earlier yesterday on NBC’s Today show, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who called for the flag’s removal, said: “No one should ever drive by the Statehouse and feel pain. No one should ever drive by the Statehouse and feel like they don’t belong.”