Confederate Flag targeted in the wake of church shooting
The shocking killings at a South Carolina church have re-ignited the political controversy over the Confederate battle flag still flying above the state house grounds.
Flag supporters say it is a symbol of Confederate and southern heritage while critics argued it is a relic of white supremacy.
Dylann Roof fatally shot nine black people inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
“This was an act of racial terrorism,” the president of the NAACP, Cornell Brooks, shouted in Charleston. “That symbol has to come down!”
In 2000, civil right activists got the flag removed from inside the South Carolina state house and from atop the capitol dome. However, the flag still flies on the capital grounds in Columbia, S.C.
2016 GOP presidential candidate and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told CNN that the flag is “part of who we are” but had no problem with the state revisiting the issue.
Confederate Flag flying over the South Carolina capitol photo/ Jason Lander Flickr
That same day, the White House said President Obama has stated the roughly 150-year-old flag “belongs in a museum.”
“And that is still his position,” spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters aboard Air Force One.
On Saturday, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney called for the flag to be removed from the state capitol grounds.
“To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred,” he tweeted. “Remove it now to honor # Charleston victims.”
“We cannot have the Confederate flag waving on the grounds of the state Capitol,” Brooks said.
In an interview on CNN later in the day, Brooks added that the flag not only “represents bias (and) bigotry,” but alienates large swaths of the state’s population, which is about 28% black.
