The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Author

By Noel Young, Correspondent

July 10, 2015 | 4 min read

At 10 minutes past ten US Eastern time today the controversial Confederate battle flag was finally hauled down at the South Carolina Capitol.

A crowd of thousands, mixing tears and cheers, watched as a group of seven troopers marched up to the flagpole in Columbia, the state capital, ceremonially lowered the flag, folded it and carried it off.

Less than 24 hours earlier, after a rancorous debate , the state’s woman governor Nikki Haley signed into law a measure to remove the flag seen by many as a symbol of race hate.

Now the hope is that across America, the nation is finally turning its back on racism.

Online retailer Amazon is ready to pull Confederate flag items from its web store. Walmart, Ebay and Sears have said they'll stop selling similar merchandise. And flagmakers everywhere have said they’ll stop making the controversial standard.

The flag was a battle flag in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history - the American Civil War which claimed more than 625,000 American lives - more than the two World Wars and Vietnam combined.The war ended the curse of slavery in the American South.

Yet today many in the South remained attached to the flag despite the racial prejudice that it signified.

One version of the flag (see gallery) - was dominated by a big white patch - signifying the intention of the white supremacists.

The designer of that flag - William Thompson publisher of the Savannah Morning News - wrote In a series of editorials, “As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.”

The final defeat of the Confederate battle flag was the culmination of a years-long movement given great urgency by the murders of nine members of a historic black Charleston church.

Before signing the order to take down the flag, Governor Haley spoke of the black victims, killed by a white man after they welcomed him into a June 17 prayer meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston.

When the confessed killer, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, was caught, relatives of the victims said in court that they forgave him.

That act of love and faith, Haley said, set into motion a chain of events that led to the flag's removal less than a month later.

"May we never forget the actions that those people took to get us to this point today," the governor said.

That act of forgiveness, Haley said, sparked a wave of compassion around the country that motivated people to change things.

In the days after the shootings, photos emerged of Roof posing with the Confederate flag.

South Carolina first flew the Confederate flag at the Capitol in Columbia as recently as 1962 as a response to the civil rights movement.

The state legislature lost state Sen. Clementa Pickney, Emanuel's top pastor, in the church massacre.

Republican governor Haley had previously opposed calls to lower the flag, and suggested moving it from the Capitol dome to a nearby flag pole. But she shifted her view amid the furor that followed the shootings.

She signed her name to the legislation with several pens - nine of which will go the families of the victims.

Political author and Huffpo writer Rich Rubino pointed out to The Drum that Dylann Roof wanted to start a race war with his murderous rampage.

“Instead he has seen the flag he loved almost completely banned from public display.”

Confederate Flag

More from Confederate Flag

View all