South Carolina’s Confederate flag comes down to cheers

The Confederate flag, a symbol of America’s battlefield history, but for many, a symbol of a bitter and deeply rooted racism, has been removed from South Carolina’s state Capitol.

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said he wept tears of joy Friday morning as South Carolina took down the Confederate flag.

South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley, who pushed for the state legislature to enact a law making it possible to remove the flag, was among those watching its departure from its place just yards from the State House entrance.

Three weeks after nine black people were shot inside Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the flag that was flaunted by the white man charged with their deaths has been removed from the S.C. Statehouse grounds.

Pictures later surfaced of the accused gunman, Dylann Roof, holding the Confederate flag.

The flag was furled by an Honor Guard from the South Carolina Highway Patrol. Cpl.

It was being retired “with dignity”, as Gov. Nikki Haley noted in signing the bill authorizing its removal. She handed each of the nine pens she used to sign the bill to the families of church shooting victims.

The Confederate flag represents the Southern states of the USA who tried to secede from the Union over slavery, sparking the American the Civil War. Here’s a brief explanation of the Confederate battle flag, a historic but deeply divisive symbol that remains present in the American South. It was relocated in 2000 to a 30-foot (10-metre) flag pole alongside a memorial to Confederate war dead on the State House lawn. What became the lasting symbol of the rebel South and is now known as the “Confederate flag” or “rebel flag” is the rectangular version of the Confederate Army battle flag – a star-studded blue “X” overlaying a red field. But it was kept there as a protest against the Civil Rights movement.

Such has been the backlash at the Confederate flag, major retailers no longer stock it, country music acts stopped flaunting and the NASCAR stock vehicle organization – wildly popular in the rural South – appealed to racing fans to stop displaying it.

By a vote of 36-3, the Senate gave final approval to remove the flag earlier this week. “The races have been split all these years, and we need to come together with unity”. They said the day was bittersweet.

This is what Gov. Haley said on the “Today” show Friday morning: “No one should ever drive by the Statehouse and feel pain”. The Mississippi flag includes the rebel battle flag, and Georgia’s incorporates another Confederate design. “People wanted to read so much more into that”, he said.

The flag was driven to the museum by police escort a mile west on Gervais Street from the State House.

In April 1961, South Carolina hoisted the Confederate battle flag over the Capitol dome in Columbia to honor the 100th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. “But today I am very proud to say it is a great day in South Carolina“. “I’m so glad my children and six grandchildren will get to see this history.”The head of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Charles Kelly Barrow, issued a statement on Thursday saying he was “dismayed” by the law’s signing, describing it as a “politically convenient insult to the legacy of millions of South Carolinians”””.