Our View: Confederate battle flag must come down
So, after 160 years, South Carolina is finally, maybe, hopefully coming to its senses. The Confederate battle flag should not be flying on the grounds of South Carolina’s state Capitol. Not on the Statehouse dome, as it was until 2000, and not a few feet away at the Confederate Soldiers Monument, as it does today.
If it remains there when the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator, lies in state on Wednesday, it will be an unacceptable affront to human decency.
Monday, two of South Carolina’s most prominent politicians called for the removal of the state’s flag atop all public buildings. First came Lindsey Graham, the drawling senator from South Carolina. He suggested the only appropriate place for his great state’s flag is in museums. Minutes later, he appeared with Gov. Nikki Haley and a throng of other politicians, also insisting the flag must go.
This is something that should have been settled decades ago. Eight southern states incorporate some form of the symbol in their flags. They should remove it, too.
The flag was born in rebellion; a war to protect the most heinous of human practices – enslavement of others. No, it’s not a pure symbol of Southern pride and tradition or a way to honor one’s ancestors. It was a symbol of armed defiance when it was first used and remains one today. But now it is freighted with more symbolism – that of virulent racism. It has been embraced by the Ku Klux Klan and their secretive sympathizers who defended segregation in the 1960s.
It’s worth noting that South Carolina did not fly the flag over its statehouse until 1962, when Gov. Fritz Hollings hoisted it. It was that same flag, now next to the dome, that Sen. Pinckney saw from his office window a few hours before he was gunned down in his Charleston church by, according to police, a young white supremacist who featured the flag on his social media postings. Eight others died, too.
The insanity of keeping the Confederate flag aloft should be obvious.
And yet, until Monday, when Gov. Haley declared “it’s time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds,” it wasn’t obvious. Far from it.
Asked about the flag, the cast of Republicans running for the 2016 presidential nomination all sidestepped the question – including Graham, who apparently had a change of heart over the weekend. Sen. Marco Rubio, said he was certain South Carolina would “make the right choice” for its people. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, complained about being “baited” with the question. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker basically refused to answer.
Those GOP aspirants don’t want to offend any Confederate-flag-loving, conservative white residents of the state where the second Republican primary is conducted. That is politics at its worst and deserves no respect.
We are thankful then, that Haley, Graham and others found the political courage to do the right thing. Displaying the Confederate flag on private property is one thing; “the Statehouse is different,” as Haley said, “and the events of this past week call upon us to look at this in a different way.”
The battle isn’t over yet, though. To remove the flag from Capitol grounds, South Carolina’s legislature must first vote to authorize discussing the matter in a special session and then, by a two-thirds margin in both chambers, vote to remove it. Similar efforts have fallen short in the past.
This should be done quickly, by acclamation. And then the other states that still venerate it should quickly follow suit.
The Confederate flag has no place in society. Like Nazi Germany’s swastika and the Soviet hammer and sickle, the Confederate battle flag belongs in museums and history books. No matter what it stood for 100 years ago or even 50, it is now a symbol of virulent, racial hatred and as such should be anathema to all Americans. Tear down that flag, South Carolina.
This story was originally published June 23, 2015 at 9:05 AM with the headline "Our View: Confederate battle flag must come down."