Seeing the few white-haired men waving Confederate flags and talking about heritage, Gross, who is black, said: “Their history is not that important to me”.
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A multi-racial honor guard of South Carolina troopers wearing dress-gray uniforms and white gloves carefully folded and rolled it up.
“It’s time to write the next chapter of our history”, he said Thursday. But other symbols of the Civil-War South are unlikely to vanish soon. At the base of the Statehouse’s Confederate monument, the rebel flag had flown atop a pole since it was moved there from the Statehouse dome in a 2000 compromise. It’s not as if there’s a huge groundswell within Republican ranks to fly the Confederate flag – particularly after its association with the alleged killer in last month’s South Carolina black-church massacre.
“We commend South Carolina lawmakers for taking this action to remove the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds”, NCAA Board of Governors representative Kirk Schulz said in a statement. The state’s two Republican USA senators, Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, followed his lead and advocated change.
So why were leaders from the LOS calling for the Confederate battle flag to be confined to museums more than a year ago? Sons of Confederate Veterans groups in states including Georgia and Virginia have pledged to fight to keep them. As one student said to me, “It’s just plain weird to be racist now”. “I think that within the entertainment industry, Kid Rock should definitely take leadership and dismiss this flag from his show”.
It was 8:30 Wednesday night, and the House was plodding toward its 20th hour of debate on a little-watched appropriations bill, when Rep. Ken Calvert of California, who had been leading the Republican side of the debate, rose. Henry Barbour tweeted June 22 after Gunn called for change.
The Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously last Tuesday to raise it again, at least until the county’s historical commission can advise the board on the most appropriate setting for the Confederate flag.
Bryant, his lieutenant governor and every member of the legislature are up for re-election this fall.
Police said the theft of the flag remains under investigation.
Supporters of the current flag seem to have the upper hand in Jackson, the state capital. Emanuel A.M.E. Church is on a street named for John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina “statesman” who defended slavery not as a necessary evil but as an absolute good, and who laid the philosophical groundwork for the treasonous act of secession.
After Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people in a historically black church in my home state of South Carolina, it was the younger generation that began driving a social media discussion.
“This turmoil didn’t exist a month ago”, Sanchez, who is white, said Thursday. People will have to search their souls, gauging how much a symbol means to them versus how hurtful it might be to others. He also believes it hurts Mississippi’s business prospects by making the state appear backward and hostile.
“This type of attitude and this type of promotion of symbols of hate – or even hate speech – just have no more place, whether it’s entertainment or whether it’s in the public square”, Williams said.
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Meanwhile, the issue of the Confederate flag’s current placement continues to divide residents.
