That hatred, the NAACP says, was “fueled by the Confederate Battle Flag and all that it stands for”.
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The red, white and blue flag has been a focal point of controversy in South Carolina – birthplace of the Confederacy – since it was raised in the early 1960s atop the State House dome in defiance of the civil rights movement then sweeping the United States.
He tells the Sun Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1GetSKl ) he “put it up as a joke to see if anyone would notice” and it only took 15 minutes before he started receiving calls.
As about two dozen protesters gathered at the historical flags display in the McPherson Governmental Complex in Ocala to voice their dissent over the flag, the top of the flagpole and the flag itself reportedly fell.
The flag he flew was 4 feet by 6 feet, far smaller than the American flag above it, which he claims is the largest in Florida.
A county employee later picked up the flag and took it away. It moved quickly through the state senate, but was subject to 13 hours of contentious debate in the house, where it passed just after 1am on Thursday. Starting with Haley’s remarkable display of leadership less than a week after the murders, the state moved with urgent decisiveness to remove the divisive symbol on the Statehouse grounds. They took it down – you know – we have to live with that. “When my ancestors since they bring up heritage were the ones that were on the short of end of the stick with soldiers, army, police wearing this flag on their helmets and uniforms as they main and tortured my people. Today, at long last, this has been done”.
NAACP President Cornell William Brooks said the removal of the flag shows the commitment by the state to honoring those killed in Charleston the attack.
“The Confederate battle flag was a sign of defiance, a sign of pride, a declaration of a geographical area that you were proud to be from”, Daniels wrote.
Now, the organizations that had imposed economic boycotts on South Carolina for flying the flag are reevaluating their stance on the state after its removal.
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Haley said: “No one should ever drive by the Statehouse and feel pain”.
