One year ago, on July 10, 2015 the confederate flag was lowered from its place of honor in front of the Statehouse in Columbia signaling the end of a contentious period of state history. Over fifty years of contention to be exact.
The General Assembly didn’t order the flag to fly over the Statehouse dome until one hundred years after the Civil War. In 1962, it was a clear signal of defiance as the southern states moved toward integration. The first calls to remove the flag began in the 1970’s. The legislature resisted until 2000 when a hard-fought compromise saw it moved from atop the dome to the capitol grounds.
But on the night of June 17th last year (2015) at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, a tragedy set in motion events that would lead to the flags permanent removal.
The murders of nine blacks attending church bible study by a young … self-proclaimed white supremacist, who posed for photographs with the confederate flag, and said he wanted to start a race war seemed to shock the conscious of the state and nation.
Like many, Governor Nikki Haley seemed to be profoundly affected by the church shootings and on June 22nd called on the General Assembly to order the flag taken down.
Full report listen here ….
