Confederate flag debate spreads to other states

South Carolina lawmakers took steps Tuesday to consider the removal the Confederate battle flag from the ground of the Capitol as campaigns against Confederate symbols spread in other states.

Prompted by the Charleston church massacre and the soul-searching it has set off, both the state House and the Senate voted shortly Tuesday afternoon to consider Gov. Nikki R. Haley’s call to remove the flag from its position next to the State House.

The attack last week in Charleston has breathed new life into campaigns against Confederate symbols in other states.

In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, announced that he was taking steps to remove the flag from license plates, saying it “divides many of our people.”

“Even its display on state-issued license tags is, in my view, unnecessarily divisive and hurtful to too many of our people,” McAuliffe said.

In Mississippi, the speaker of the House, Philip Gunn, a Republican, said the banner should be removed from his state’s flag. While it is important to remember the past, he said in a statement, “that does not mean we must let it define us.”

“We need to begin having conversations about changing Mississippi’s flag,” Gunn said.

In Texas, Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from San Antonio, called on state leaders to work together to remove Confederal monuments from the University of Texas campus in Austin, a day after the university president, Gregory Fenves, promised to work with student leaders to review the issue.

In Tennessee, lawmakers are seeking to remove a bust of a Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest, from the Capitol, The Associated Press reported. In Nashville, several City Council members are seeking to cover up a private statue of Forrest that sits along the Interstate 65 corridor.

At a rally here in Columbia outside the State House, flag opponents chanted “bring it down,” and urged more people around the state to help them keep up the pressure on lawmakers. “If our ancestors could march, then certainly you can pick up the telephone, use Twitter,” said state Sen. Marlon Kimpson.

The Rev. Nelson Rivers III vowed that “we will keep coming back over and over and over” until the flag is gone.

The protesters had some new allies on the issue, people like state Sen. Tom Davis, a white Republican, whose views, like Haley’s were altered by the killing of nine African-American people last week by a white gunman at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Davis told those gathered at the rally that he had come to understand that for many people, the Confederate banner “is a painful reminder of a shameful part of our history.”

But he warned that getting the legislature to remove it might not be easy. “There are some very good and decent people up there in that General Assembly, without a racist bone in their body, who revere that flag,” he said.

Speaking at a news conference Monday, surrounded by Democrats and Republicans, Haley, a Republican, said, “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer.” The shootings, she said, “call upon us to look at this in a different way.”

Authorities have arrested a 21-year-old suspect, Dylann Roof, in the attack, and photographs of him posing with the flag have prompted the renewed efforts to remove it from the State House grounds.

Among lawmakers, there is some disagreement as to what the threshold should be for repealing the law that allows the flag to fly in front of the State House.

As part of a compromise in 2000, which removed the flag from atop the Capitol dome, the legislature ordered that any change require a two-thirds vote in each chamber. But this week, some lawmakers said that it was not within the legislature’s power to set such a threshold - and that it might only take a majority in each house to change the law.

Haley has said that she would call the legislature into another special session if the matter was not taken up this time, but that effort could come in for a legal challenge.

While liberals and African-Americans have long lobbied for the removal of the flag from the Capitol grounds, a number of Republicans say the flag is an important way to honor their ancestors. They also tend to reject the argument that it is a symbol of hate, even though the flag was first hoisted above the State House in 1962, largely as a rebuke to those who were, at the time, pushing to expand the civil rights of black people.

Republicans enjoy a majority in both houses of the legislature. But the state party is famously quarrelsome, and it is not clear if Haley and her allies will prevail.

Dwight C. James Sr., the executive director of the South Carolina conference of the NAACP, said it was unclear whether the votes were there. For those who vote no on the effort to amend the resolution, James said, “We'll definitely be having conversations with their constituents.”

“There are hard-liners who don’t want to change for sure,” he said.

Questions about the proper place for the battle flag have long been a source of passionate debate in South Carolina, where an attack on federal troops at Fort Sumter in 1861 was seen as the beginning of the Civil War.

Outside the Capitol on Monday night, some honked in support of Haley’s position, while others criticized it.

Daniel Bledsoe, a construction worker, said the idea was “kind of like treasonry.”

“I’m proud of my history,” Bledsoe, 22, said. “All of my ancestors fought. Soldiers built this country. Slaves fought with us. Everybody fought. Everybody lost, and everybody is proud.”

This story was originally published June 23, 2015 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Confederate flag debate spreads to other states."