BANNER OF CONTROVERSY
South Carolina's
Confederate flag
is gone, but others
remain
BY KATHLEEN FOODY.
JEFFREY COLLINS AND
MEG KJNNARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLUMBIA, S.C.
The Confederate battle flag
no longer flies at South
Carolina's Statehouse, now
relegated to a room filled
with other relics of the
state's secession. Other
vestiges of the Civil War
era South are unlikely to
vanish so soon.
Several states have
taken or are considering
action to remove the flag
and other Confederate
symbols and monuments
since the massacre of nine
people at a Bible study
inside a black church;
police have charged a man
shown in pictures with the
flag who they say was
motivated by hate. It has
been banished from
Alabama's Capitol and fed
eral cemeteries, and
Memphis officials are
working to move the
remains and a statue of
slave trader and
Confederate Gen. Nathan
Bedford Forrest out of a
prominent park.
Cf?ll fUa rartiAn ic full
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of monuments to key play
ers in the Confederacy and
even the Ku Klux Klan.
Confederate flags remain a
common sight on license
plates in the South, and the
flag is a part of
Mississippi's own state
flag. Georgia's state flag is
based on the national flag
of the Confederacy known
as the stars and bars.
The response in South
Carolina and other states is
encouraging after 15 years
of no activity but was
prompted only by a "mas
sacre," said Mark Potok, a
senior fellow at the
Southern Poverty Law
Center.
"We need a kind of
mental cleansing down
here," Potok said. "It's 150
years overdue."
Large numbers of flag
supporters, who say it sym
bolizes Southern heritage
and history, remain. North
Carolina sold out of its ver
sion of Confederate license
plates when Gov. Pat
McCrory said the state
should stop selling them;
no action has been taken
yet to halt the sales. Sons of
Confederate Veterans
groups in states including
Georgia and Virginia have
pledged to fight to keep
them.
Chad Haden, 34, ot
Braxton, Mississippi, said
many flags have flown for
nations that allowed slav
ery, including the U.S. flag.
Haden said one of his
ancestors fought for the
Confederacy, and he does
not want to see
Mississippi's flag change
apylfiore than he wanted
-tfie battle flag in South
Carolina to come down.
"I've got to question
the motive of it, of why
they come after us? It's like
they're trying to take one
bad thing from us, slavery,
and they ignore the
progress that was made
before the war. They try to
make us the villain. I've got
a question: Is it just a
hatred of Southerners?"
Top Republicans in
Mississippi, including the
House speaker and both
U.S. Senators, have pushed
to follow South Carolina's
lead, though Gov. Phil
Bryant has said he won't
call a special session to
consider removing the bat
tle flag from the state flag.
He has pointed to a 2001
vote where supporters of
the flag outnumbered
opponents 2-to-1.
Bryant, his lieutenant
governor and every mem
ber of the legislature are up
for re-election this fall
Derrick Johnson, president
of the Mississippi NAACP.
1
has called on Bryant to
bring about change.
"It's time to write the
next chapter of our history,"
he said Thursday.
Georgia's state flag
long resembled the
Confederate stars and bars
until 1956, when the design
prominently incorporated
the battle flag design
removed from South
Carolina. That was widely
believed to be a protest to
the Supreme Court deci
sion in Brown v. Board of
Education that ordered the
desegregation of schools.
New flag ordered
In 2001, Democratic
Gov. Roy Barnes signed a
law ordering a new flag
that prominently featured
the state seal against a blue
background; much smaller
images of the older.
Confederate-inspired flags
of the past were shown
beneath, above the words
"In God We Trust." That
design lasted only until
2003, when Barnes lost re
election and his Republican
successor signed a bill into
law restoring the stars and
bars-inspired design.
Other efforts to change
the flag failed, including in
1993 when then-Gov. Zell
Miller called the rebel
emblem
"theConfederacy's most
inflammatory symbol."
Democratic state Sen.
Vincent Fort, who is black,
plans to introduce legisla
tion to end Georgia's com
memoration of Confederate
holidays, which are com
monly observed by govern
ments in the Deep South.
However, many of his
Republican counterparts in
the GOP-dominated legis
lature and the governor
have shown little appetite
for taking up such issues.
"We will take our first
bite at the elephant, and
digest it one bite at a time,"
Fort said last month.
In South Carolina, Gov.
Nikki Haley made it a pri
ority for lawmakers to pass
legislation to take the flag
down, reversing course
from her 2014 campaign
trail dismissal of
Democratic challenger
Vincent Sheheen's call for
its removal as a campaign
stunt.
On Friday, she told
NBC's " Today" show it
was crucial to remove a
symbol considered an
emblem of slavery by
many, saying "no one
should ever drive by the
Statehouse and feel pain."
Thousands watched an
honor guard lower the flag
and roll it up to be carried
to the nearby Confederate
Relic Room and Military
Museum, chanting "USA!"
and singing "hey, hey, hey,
goodbye." Jubilant support
ers of taking the flag down
vastly outnumbered those
who hoped it would
A hole remains in the ground at the South Carolina Statehouse after workers
tore up the concrete base, which used to hold a flagpole that flew the
Confederate flag Monday, July 13,2015, in Columbia, S.C. South Carolina took
down the rebel banner after more than 50 years flying over some part of the
Capitol.
remain, and the daughter of
one of the women killed at
the Charleston church
struck an optimistic note.
"The tragedy was a
tragedy. But now on the
other side of that tragedy,
we see a lot of positives
coming out," said Denise
Quarles, whose mother,
Myra Thompson, was
among those killed June
17. "Maybe people will
change their hearts."
Associated Press writer
Emily Wagster Pettus in
Jackson, Mississippi, con
tributed to this report.
Foody reported from
Atlanta.
AI riKHU>'UIHI IMUilMl
An honor guard from the South Carolina
Highway patrol removes the Confederate battle
flag from the Capitol grounds in Columbia, S.C.,
ending its 54-year presence there, on Friday,
July 10,2015.
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