On Friday, South Carolina removed the Confederate flag that has flown over the state’s capitol for more than 50 years. As the Highway Patrol Honor Guard marched and removed the symbol, protestors both for and against its removal crowded around and yelled things like “take it down!”
Moving forward, the flag will be displayed in the State Museum’s Confederate Relic room near its original home, the capitol. Meanwhile, on Thursday in Washington, D.C., according to the Washington Post, House Speaker John Boehner led a review of whether Confederate symbols should be displayed on federal land, including those displayed in and around the capitol.
Boehner was forced to halt consideration of a government funding measure after it became engulfed by the Confederate flag controversy and whether it was appropriate to display the flags at national cemeteries where Confederate soldiers are buried.
Naturally, the argument for and against Confederate displays was centered between Congressional Black Caucus members and Southern conservatives; the former see the flag as a symbol of slavery and how much Southern states loved the practice, while the latter see the flag as “heritage,” somehow divorced from the history of slavery. Maybe the Confederate flag should just really be a picture of sweet tea?
Either way, South Carolina’s confederate flag has been removed and it’s a shame that it took the violent murders of the Emanuel Nine by Dylann Roof to make this kind of progress.
Contact the author at Hillary@jezebel.com.
