South Carolina Votes to Take Down Confederate Flag

09 Jul, 2015

The Confederate flag, a symbol of racism for many in the United States and of Southern heritage for others, is set to be removed from South Carolina’s state Capitol grounds on Thursday after lawmakers sealed its fate in a late-night session.

The bill to remove the flag, which dates back to the 1861-65 American Civil War, would transfer it to the “relic room” at a military museum in the state capital, Columbia, as soon as midday Thursday.

It passed a third and final vote in the House of Representatives shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday by a hefty margin of 94-20, after 13 hours of at times rancorous debate and stiff opposition from a group of conservative white Republicans.

It has already passed the Senate and now goes to Governor Nikki Haley who has said she will sign it into law.

Haley posted a statement on her official Facebook page early Thursday saying: “it is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state.”

The final vote was secured almost exactly three weeks after nine black worshippers were gunned down on June 17 during Bible study at a church with an historically black congregation in Charleston.

The battle over the banner was stoked by photos of the accused shooter, Dylann Roof, 21, posing with a Confederate flag on a website bearing a racist manifesto.

The massacre prompted widespread repudiation of the flag by southern U.S. politicians, led by Haley, as well as major retailers and motor racing’s NASCAR.

House members who supported the flag denied its association with slavery, repeatedly referred to the need to show respect for their ancestors who fought for the state and the Confederacy on the losing side of the Civil War.

Flag critics point out the flag was not raised atop the State House until 1961, a century after the Civil War, in what many blacks saw as a deliberate snub to the civil rights movement then gaining momentum.

Reuters

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