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Confederate Flag To Be Removed From Statehouse Only 150 Years After The Civil War

Only 150 Years After The Civil War, It's Coming Down...
Paul Vale
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NEW YORK -- Following the mass killing in Charleston, South Carolina, last week, the state’s governor finally called for the confederate flag to be removed from its flutter near the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina on Monday. Remarkably, it took the racially motivated murder of nine African-Americans for Republican Nikki Haley to suggest the civil war relic should probably come down.

After mounting pressure to remove what many Americans decry as an emblem of slavery and segregation, Haley told a press conference: “That flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state." Although the governor said the flag was used by most South Carolinians to honour their forebears, Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old charged with the murders of nine people in an African-American church, had a “sick and twisted” view of the banner.

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The Confederate flag flies near the South Carolina Statehouse, Friday, June 19, 2015, in Columbia, S.C

She said that people in the state were still free to fly the flag outside their homes, but in regards to the emblem flying above the statehouse, the events of the past week “call on us to look at this in a different way.”

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, backed Hayley’s move to remove the flag, saying on Monday: “After the tragic, hate-filled shooting in Charleston, it is only appropriate that we deal once and for all with the issue of the flag."

Earlier on Monday, Barack Obama gave a blunt appraisal of the shooting, telling a podcast that "it's not just a matter of it not being polite to say nigger in public." The country's first African-American commander in chief added: "That's not the measure of whether racism still exists or not. It's not just a matter of overt discrimination. Societies don't, overnight, completely erase everything that happened 200 to 300 years prior."

Obama noted that "no other advanced nation on Earth" suffers these incidents with such frequency, ascribing that to the “legacy of slavery." He said: “Jim Crow, discrimination in almost every institution of our lives, you know, that casts a long shadow, and that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on."

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Governor Nikki Haley along with other lawmakers and activists delivers a statement to the media asking that the Confederate flag be removed from the state capitol ground on June 22, 2015

When asked how to stop the killings, he said it was possible to “make events like this less likely," namely passing laws to control gun rights in the US, however said the "grip of the NRA on Congress is extremely strong."

Last week, a board member of the National Rifle Association responded to the Charleston killings by blaming the pastor and state senator who was gunned down in the massacre. Writing on the TexasCHLForum.com, Charles Cotton said Clementa Pinckney was to blame for the slaughter as he voted against a law that would have allowed congregants to carry concealed guns in churches.

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Charleston Shooting
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A man kneels across the street from where police gather outside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church following the shooting Wednesday, June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina. (credit:Wade Spees / The Post And Courier / AP)
(02 of25)
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Worshippers embrace following a group prayer across the street from the scene of the shooting. A white man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside the historic black church, killing multiple people, including the pastor, in an assault that authorities described as a hate crime. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A distraught man is comforted as a group of concerned people arrive inquiring about the shooting. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Charleston police officers search for a shooting suspect outside the Emanuel AME Church. (credit:Matthew Fortner / The Post And Courier / AP)
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Lisa Doctor joins a prayer circle early Thursday, June 18, 2015, down the street from Emanuel following the shooting. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Worshippers gather to pray in a hotel parking lot across the street from the scene of the attack. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Worshippers gather to pray down the street from the Emanuel church. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Police close off a section of Calhoun Street near the church. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Charleston Emergency Management Director Mark Wilbert on Thursday holds a flier that was distributed to media with surveillance footage of a suspect wanted in connection with the shooting. (Photo: David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Surreace Cox, of North Charleston, South Carolina, holds a sign during a prayer vigil down the street from the Emanuel AME Church early Thursday. (Photo: David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Worshippers gather to pray in a hotel parking lot across the street from the church. (Photo: David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A police officer uses a flashlight while searching the area. (Photo: David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Rev. Sandy Drayton sheds a tear during a prayer vigil held at Morris Brown AME Church for the victims of Wednesday's shooting at Emanuel AME Church on Thursday, June 18, 2015 in Charleston, S.C. (credit:Grace Beahm / The Post and Courier / AP)
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Parishioners listen during a memorial service at Morris Brown AME Church for the nine people killed Wednesday during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A parishioner prays during a memorial service at Morris Brown AME Church for the people killed Wednesday during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. Police arrested 21-year-old suspect Dylann Storm Roof Thursday in Shelby, N.C. without resistance. (AP Photo/David Goldman) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Natasha Wright speaks to her two daughters, Thursday, June 18, 2015 at a make-shift memorial near the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was arrested Thursday in the slayings of several people, including the pastor, at a prayer meeting inside the historic black church in downtown Charleston. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, center right, joins hands with Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, left, and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., right, at a memorial service at Morris Brown AME Church for the people killed Wednesday during a prayer meeting inside the historic black church in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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People sit on the steps of Morris Brown AME Church while services are held June 18, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. Police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old white gunman suspected of killing nine people at a prayer meeting in one of the nation's oldest black churches in Charleston, an attack being probed as a hate crime. The shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the southeastern US city was one of the worst attacks on a place of worship in the country in recent years, and comes at a time of lingering racial tensions. (credit:BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)
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A South Carolina State Trooper walks past as people gather for a vigil while services are held at Morris Brown AME Church June 18, 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina. (credit:BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)
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Charleston police Lt. S. Siprko removes flowers from the backseat of a patrol car, Thursday, June 18, 2015 to a makeshift memorial in front of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. T (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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State Senator Vincent Sheheen (D-Kershaw) gets emtional as he sits next to the draped desk of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, Thursday, June 18, 2015, at the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. Pinckney was one of those killed, Wednesday night in a shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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A group of women pray together at a make-shift memorial on the sidewalk in front of the Emanuel AME Church, Thursday, June 18, 2015 in Charleston, S.C. Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was arrested Thursday in the slayings of several people, including the pastor at a prayer meeting inside the historic black church. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Tyler Francis, right, hugs Shondrey Dear after praying together, Thursday, June 18, 2015 at a make-shift memorial near the Emanuel AME Church following a shooting Wednesday night in Charleston, S.C. Shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was captured without resistance in North Carolina Thursday after an all-night manhunt, Charleston's police chief Greg Mullen said. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Charleston, S.C., shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof is escorted from the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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Charleston, S.C., shooting suspect Dylann Storm Roof is escorted from the Sheby Police Department in Shelby, N.C., Thursday, June 18, 2015. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton) (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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