It’s a Great Day in South Carolina

This morning I woke up at 6:45am, turned on MSNBC, and anxiously waited on the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds. Since I couldn’t fly home to SC to witness it I wanted to watch it live on television from new home in Seattle. As the Honor Guard pulled the flag down I could hear the crowd chanting, "nah, nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye."

This is an important moment in history.

This is the completion of an extremely long and exhausting struggle decades in the making.
The flag is now on its way to its proper place, a museum.

I’m so proud of my home state.

I never thought I’d see the day when the Confederate flag was no longer standing tall from a flagpole and flapping freely in the wind on the Statehouse grounds of South Carolina.

After Governor Nikki Haley signed bill S897 Thursday afternoon I teared up. She used nine pens to honor the victims of the Mother Emmanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston. With former Governor David Beasley (who initially called for the removal of the flag at the cost of his political career) and former Governor Jim Hodges by her side, I was overwhelmed by the moment. In some ways I’m still in shock.

It’s a shame a tragedy brought us here but they did not die in vain.

Governor Nikki Haley signing the bill to remove the Confederate flag.

The Sun News front page in 2000.

I’m compelled to share my experience because I was in Columbia in 2000 when the flag was moved from the top of the Statehouse dome to a Confederate monument on the front lawn. At the time I was a journalism student at the University of South Carolina. I worked with the SCETV radio for a report on the NAACP’s silent march in protest of the “compromise” lawmakers agreed to. I walked alongside the group with a microphone and recorder in hand. Assembling on a side street all was quiet but as we approached the Statehouse we were met with a crowd of Confederate flag supporters. They were chanting, yelling, and waving the stars and bars high into the air.

For a moment I was taken aback. I thought to myself that this is what it must have been like when protestors marched during the Civil Rights Movement. Only this time the police were there to protect us. It was scary. I knew I was safe but what if something happened? As the flag was lowered from the dome I remember a woman wiping tears from her eyes. She like many others that day didn’t like it being moved.

Frankly I’m baffled by the romanticism some apply when they think of the antebellum South. If I had been born in the 1800’s I’d most certainly be a slave – shackled, legally bound to someone, and treated poorly. It’s just that plain and simple. I don’t understand why supporters want to align themselves with a symbol used by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy groups in the United States and across the world. Even if I was born of a different ancestry I would see why this particular symbol doesn’t belong on public property. After all, NO ONE would ever say to a Jewish person they should adjust their view of a swastika as a symbol of heritage.

An article written by the author of Lies My Teacher Told Me (a book I highly recommend reading) explains the phenomena. In “Why do people believe myths about the Confederacy? Because our textbooks and monuments are wrong” Loewen states:

The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the misinformation they spread, which has manifested in our public monuments and our history books.

Generally speaking South Carolina white knuckles it when it comes to holding onto tradition. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in other places. While there are plenty of progressives in the state some of the ones holding the reins don’t want to let go. They don’t want to move forward. They don’t want to change as evidenced in the fact that removing the flag was not a unanimous decision by state lawmakers.

I also don’t have any misconceptions surrounding today’s historic event. The flag coming down won’t curb the hatred in the hearts of people who don’t like me simply because of the color of my skin. The removal of the flag won’t suddenly put all South Carolinians on equal ground.

This is a start.

Flag supporters will no longer have their antiquated beliefs reinforced by the state.

Within hours of the flag's removal the pole and fence were also taken down.

I know change is possible.

As I type this from my desk in Washington State the vast contrast in the belief system here compared to some back home is not lost on me. Now I live in an area where this type of debate is foreign and they wonder how this is even still a thing.

Yes, it is a great day in South Carolina, but there’s still more work to do. Let’s all move forward together.

RELATED STORIES:
SC raised Confederate flag in 1961 to insult nine black protesters — and took it down to honor nine slain

The Complicated Political History Of The Confederate Flag 

Here’s what most of the nay voters on Confederate flag removal have in common

Why I Changed My Mind About the Confederate Flag