In the wake of the massacre of nine African-Americans, including a state Senator at a historic black church in Charleston in June, the Governor of South Carolina has signed legislation to remove the Civil War-era Confederate battle flag that has flown outside the Statehouse.
Authorities describe the shootings as a hate crime, and >Dylann Roof , the white suspect charged with murder, has appeared in widely seen photos holding Confederate flags. The landmark decision to remove the flag comes five decades after it was raised to protest the civil rights movement.
Here’s a brief explanation of the >Confederate battle flag, a historic but deeply divisive symbol that remains present in the American South.
A tangled history
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the military of the secessionist, pro-slavery South flew several styles of Confederate battle flags what most Americans think of as the Confederate flag. Separately, the rebel government also flew several Confederate national flags. What became the lasting symbol of the rebel South and is now known as the “Confederate flag” or “rebel flag” is the rectangular version of the Confederate Army battle flag a star-studded blue ‘X’ overlaying a field of red. This version was flown by various Confederate Army units, including the biggest, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
The flag is used to honour Confederate war dead and is embraced by many white Southerners, who say it symbolises pride in their region’s heritage. Parts of its design were incorporated into the state flags of South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia against the wishes of African-American civil rights groups who viewed it as a symbol of a brutally oppressive past. The flag has been flown over several Southern cities and has also been adopted by white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
The flag in South Carolina and around the south
South Carolina was the first of 11 states to secede from the federal Union in December 1860; the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, near Charleston. At the base of the Statehouse’s Confederate monument, the rebel flag flies atop a 30-foot pole. >South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has signed a Bill to have the flag removed, and it will be taken down during a ceremony on Friday morning.
The Confederate flag was first raised in the South Carolina House of Representatives chambers in 1938 but was not raised over the Statehouse until 1962. It was meant to commemorate the Civil War centennial, but some also saw it as a show of defiance as the civil rights movement demanded an end to racial segregation. Opponents of the flag have called for years for its removal from Statehouse grounds, and South Carolina lawmakers this week voted to take it down.
