Four Confederate battle flags were found on Thursday at the historic Atlanta church where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, in a chilling reminder of the shooting of nine African-Americans at a South Carolina church in June.

The small flags, which a custodian discovered spread out on the ground outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church early Thursday morning, were intended to send a message of racial hate, church leaders said."This is the same as placing a swastika on the campus of a Jewish temple," said Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, Ebenezer’s senior pastor, said at a press conference. "Whatever the message was, clearly it is not about heritage, but about hate.

"The flag, carried by Confederate troops on the losing side in the U.S. Civil War, is viewed by many as a symbol of the Southern legacy of slavery and racial segregation. But others hail it as an emblem of Southern heritage.

Last edited by Just Fred (7/30/2015 1:15 pm)