S.C. Senate votes to oust f lag
Measure’s fate in state House is less certain
Columbia, S.C. — The South Carolina Senate voted Monday to pull the Confederate flag off the Capitol grounds, clearing the way for a historic measure that could remove the banner more than five decades after it was first flown above the Statehouse to protest integration.
A second vote will be needed Tuesday to send the proposal to the House, where it faces a less certain future. But Monday’s 37-3 vote was well over the two-thirds majority needed to advance the bill.
If the House passes the same measure, the flag and flagpole could be removed as soon as Gov. Nikki Haley signs the papers. The flag would be lowered for the last time and shipped off to the state’s Confederate Relic Room, near where the last Confederate flag to fly over the Statehouse dome is stored.
The vote came at the end of a day of debate in which several white senators said they had come to understand why their black colleagues felt the flag no longer represented the valor of Southern soldiers but the racism that led the South to separate from the United States more than 150 years ago.
As the senators spoke, the desk of their slain colleague, Clementa Pinckney, was still draped in black cloth. Pinckney and eight other black people were fatally shot June 17 during Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston. Authorities have charged a gunman who posed for pictures with the rebel banner. Police say he was driven by racial hatred.
Several senators said the grace shown by the families of the victims willing to forgive the gunman also changed their minds.
“We now have the opportunity, the obligation, to put the exclamation point on an extraordinary narrative of good and evil, of love and mercy that will take its place in the history books,” said Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican.
After the vote, Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Democrat whose suggestion that the flag be taken down while running for governor last year was called a “stunt” by Haley, was given a high-five from a fellow legislator.
“I thought it would happen, but never this fast,” Sheheen said.
The Senate rejected three amendments. One would have put a different Confederate flag on the pole. A second would fly the flag only on Confederate Memorial Day and the third would leave its fate up to a popular vote.
There are indications the proposal could have a tougher road in the House. Some powerful Republicans have not said how they will vote, including Speaker Jay Lucas.
Some Republicans want to keep the flagpole and put a different flag on it. Suggestions have included the U.S. flag, the South Carolina flag and a flag that may have been flown by Confederate troops but does not have the same connections as the red banner with the blue cross and white stars.