Tears, family memories emerge during SC debate over flag removal

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C.

A group of Republicans mounted opposition Wednesday to immediately removing the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds as the South Carolina House opened debate, but at each turn, they were beaten back by a slightly larger, bipartisan group of legislators who believe there must be no delay.

As House members deliberated well into the night, the outcome was still uncertain. There were tears of anger and shared memories of Civil War ancestors, and so far, legislators hadn’t changed the Senate bill, which is supported by Gov. Nikki Haley and would remove the banner and the pole where it flies. Black Democrats, frustrated at being asked to show grace to Civil War soldiers as the debate went over 12 hours, warned the state was embarrassing itself.

The closest vote in the GOP-controlled body came on an amendment to place a different flag – one that flew over Confederate troops that looks similar to the state flag – beside the monument to Confederate soldiers at the front of the Statehouse. It failed on a 61-56 vote.

Looming over it all was a pair of votes over two days. The final one must get a two-thirds majority by law to remove the flag.

Changing the bill would mean it will take weeks or even months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting momentum that has grown since nine black churchgoers were killed last month during Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston.

Republican Rep. Jenny Horne reminded her colleagues she was a descendent of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and scolded fellow members of her party for stalling the debate with dozens of amendments.

She cried as she remembered the funeral of her slain colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, who was gunned down with eight others as his wife and daughter locked themselves in an office.

“For the widow of Sen. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury and I will not be a part of it!” she screamed into a microphone.