South Carolina Senate Votes to Remove Confederate Flag

A recent CNN/ORC poll found that 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than of racism.

“It’s the day we celebrate the freedom we have as Americans”, he said.

In the Senate on Monday, emotional speeches about a slain colleague punctuated the historic vote.

While there was an overwhelming majority who voted to take down the flag, there was some debate in the chambers before the vote was passed. He said the Charleston murders were a reminder that a racist cultural divide still existed in the state. Pinckney was the leader of the historic church, which is the oldest Black church in the Southern USA and was co-founded by Denmark Vesey, architect of an 1822 slave rebellion which led to whites burning the church down to the ground. The bill under consideration would move the flag to the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum. The House must deal with the governor’s vetoes first, and there are indications the proposal could have a tougher road in that chamber.

Democrats say both the flag and flagpole must go, House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said.

South Carolina lawmakers on Monday began debating whether to bring the Confederate flag down outside the Capitol, starting with a pair of senators whose families arrived in the state before the Civil War.

“Moving the flag won’t change history”, he said. “I understand how people feel about the flag”, he added. Photos emerged on a website showing him posing with the flag.

At a press conference with prominent South Carolina elected officials held days after the shooting, Haley announced her support for removing the flag from government property.

“The bill requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate to be sent to Gov. Nikki Haley, who strongly supports it”.

A woman who was arrested last month forremoving the Confederate flag from the front of the South Carolina Statehouse told CBSN that she would “absolutely” do it again because the banner is a symbol of white supremacy, hatred and racial terror. His family was also in South Carolina during the Civil War. Joel Lourie, D-Richland, encouraging lawmakers to vote for the bill. On the floor he said the Confederate flag means something different to each individual and it is time to remove the flag to help fix the culture of division in South Carolina.

State Sen. Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, joined Peeler and Bright in voting against removing the flag.

It hung for decades from the statehouse dome until civil rights activists’ succeeded in having it taken down in 2000. Lee Bright thought that removing the controversial flag would have little effect. “But I do think that it will be respectful, and that it will move swiftly”.

Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican with Tea Party support, spoke out in favour of taking down the flag in the wake of the Charleston shooting. “This is our moment to live our creed”, Kimpson said. The Senate, however, rejected three potential amendments to the bill.

Dan Malec, of Webster, N.Y., sat and waited for the wind from an incoming storm to catch the flag to snap his own picture of the Confederate battle flag. The vote would have been nonbinding.

1993: State Attorney General Travis Medlock says there’s no legal reason to keep flying the flag.