South Carolina House votes to remove Confederate Flag

confederate flag
COLUMBIA, S.C. — After a long and contentious debate that lasted past midnight, the South Carolina House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill to take the Confederate flag from off the Capitol grounds,
The Confederate battle flag was erected in 1961 atop of its Statehouse in direct protest of the gains made by blacks during the legendary Civil Rights Movement.
There has been overwhelming momentum to remove the flag after deranged mass murder and self-professed white supremacist Dylann Roof shot nine black churchgoers during Bible study at the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C.
Roof was proudly cloaked in the Confederate battle flag when he disseminated virulent anti-black diatribe on his social media platforms in the weeks before he killed the defenseless worshippers.
The House approved the Senate bill by a two-thirds margin, 94-20. It is academic that the flag will now be removed from any place near the state house grounds because Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s already held a press conference calling for its ouster from their state government headquarters.
“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,” Haley said in a statement.
Some of her political colleagues are actually stunned to see this day come to pass.
“South Carolina can remove the stain from our lives,” said 64-year-old Rep. Joe Neal, a black Democrat first elected in 1992. “I never thought in my lifetime I would see this.”
 
One GOP memeber, Republican Rep. Jenny Horne, helped to galvanize her fellow conservatives as she reminded her colleagues she was a descendent of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, yet she said the flag must come down.
She even teared up as remembered colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine church members murdered by Roof.
“For the widow of Sen. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury and I will not be a part of it!” she screamed into a microphone, according to the Associated Press.
Opponents lamented the fact that the flag is not inherently racist and that the flag had been “hijacked” or “abducted” by white supremacists.
 

About Post Author

Comments

From the Web

Skip to content