Outrage vs. Tradition, Wrapped in a High-Flying Flag of Dixie


By ALAN BLINDER and MANNY FERNANDEZ
JUNE 19, 2015





CHARLESTON, S.C. — Stunned by the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, South Carolina has been abruptly forced to confront an issue that has bedeviled it for decades: the Confederate battle flag that flies above the grounds of the State House.

The tension was on display Friday, while the American and South Carolina flags flew at half-staff and the Confederate battle flag remained at the peak of its pole outside the State House in Columbia and the N.A.A.C.P. renewed its demand that the Civil War standard be permanently removed.

“That symbol has to come down,” Cornell William Brooks, the national president of the N.A.A.C.P., said at a news conference here, calling it an emblem of hate. “That symbol must be removed from our state capital.”

Lawmakers in both parties said that despite public frustration and anger, a provision of state law prevents officials from lowering the Confederate flag to half-staff. That anger unspooled on social media, where pictures of the flag were repeatedly posted and denounced.

Some lawmakers said the discussion could lead to a reconsideration of the flag’s placement.

“I think it’s a conversation that we’re going to have,” said State Senator Tom Davis, a Republican who represents Beaufort County in the Legislature. But he added: “Nothing is going to happen simply within the walls of that chamber without the people making their voice heard. There’s a sense in the institution itself that this issue was resolved.”

For years, the flag flew above the State House dome. In 2000, state officials, pressured by a business boycott led by the N.A.A.C.P. and large protests in Columbia, decided that only the American and South Carolina flags would fly above the State House, while the Confederate battle flag would be placed in front of the building.

This week, after the killings of nine people at a Bible study class at the Emanuel church, Gov. Nikki R. Haley ordered the American and South Carolina flags lowered for nine days — one day for each of the victims — but could do nothing about the height of the Confederate standard.

South Carolina law gives only the Legislature power to make changes to the Confederate battle flag display, and they must be approved by supermajorities in both the House and the Senate.

After years of being thwarted, opponents of flying the Confederate battle flag said this time there may be enough public outcry and rage to compel legislative action.

“I think that what we’ve seen in South Carolina is another act of terrorism, and this act of terrorism reminds us of a history of terrorism enacted against African-American people, particularly in the South,” said Russell Moore, a descendant of Confederate veterans who heads the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. “I think there’s momentum now to say we’re going to do everything we can to love each other and to work together, and that means getting rid of images of division. I do think the flag will come down.”

But even as Mr. Moore expressed confidence and lawmakers discussed plans to file legislation seeking to remove the flag from the State House’s grounds, many others cautioned that any shift in policy faced difficult odds in the Legislature.

“It’s a total lose-lose issue,” said David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University and a longtime Republican consultant. “You’re not going to make any friends by doing it, so you just leave it be.”

He added: “That’s a sad thing, but that’s the way it will have to be because I don’t see anyone who’s willing to take it on. There’s no politician who’s powerful enough to take it on.”

That included, he said, Ms. Haley, who told CBS on Friday that she expected a new round of debate in Columbia, the capital.

“I think that conversation will probably come back up again,” the governor said. “What we hope is that we do things the way South Carolinians do, which is have the conversation, allow some thoughtful words to be exchanged, be kind about it, come together on what we’re trying to achieve and how we’re trying to do it. I think the state will start talking about that again, and we’ll see where it goes.”

Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN that he would support a move to “revisit” the flag’s status, but he added that the flag was part of the state’s identity.

A Winthrop University poll last fall found that 62 percent of South Carolina residents had positive or neutral feelings toward the flag. But the poll’s director, Scott H. Huffmon, said Friday that he expected to see the results change in the future.

“Most people, based on past numbers, just want to put it behind them,” Dr. Huffmon said. “But given what has happened this week, I think people that are completely O.K. with the flag would likely — and I have no data to prove this — be O.K. with taking it down given the impact it has on others.”

Supporters of the Confederate battle flag display signaled Friday that their position had not changed. In a commentary on Friday, Michael Hill, the president of the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as a hate group, said that the Confederate battle flag should remain at the State House but that the American flag should be removed.

The American flag, Mr. Hill wrote, “now stands for multiculturalism, tolerance and diversity — the left’s unholy trinity.” In “sharp contrast,” he wrote, the Confederate battle flag “stands for the heroic effort our people made 150 years ago to avoid the fate” of contemporary America.

Other supporters of the flag said they view the two issues — the mass shooting and the flag — as unrelated. Dan Coleman, a spokesman for the Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the attack had more to do with “one very troubled young man” than the flag.

“It’s a shame that those people were killed, and we all greatly regret that incident, and we were upset that anybody would try to tie people who are proud of their heritage to an act like that,” he said.

Still, in Charleston, much of the talk was about change, even if it was unclear whether the conversations would bring it about.

“Surely, this is the time that that discussion needs to be had and had at a much higher octave than it’s been done in many years,” Dot Scott, the president of the Charleston chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. said before Mr. Brooks spoke here. “There’s been a renewed time and an opportunity to have that discussion. I don’t have to guess about it because of the number of calls I’ve already gotten about it.”

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