South Carolina Senate Moves to End Stalemate on Confederate Flag
WASHINGTON — Yielding to the pressure of protest marches and a growing national boycott, the South Carolina Senate acted Wednesday night to end the 38-year stalemate over the Confederate battle flag that flutters above the Statehouse dome.
The vote in the state Capitol in Columbia came 139 years to the day after Confederate forces shelled Ft. Sumter in Charleston Harbor and ignited the Civil War. Although the compromise still faces a routine procedural vote today and a full reading in the state House, the measure sailed through several 36-to-7 votes Wednesday night--a strong indication that the Rebel banner is on the verge of lowering.
"We are very close to making history," said state Sen. J. Verne Smith, one of several die-hard flag supporters who ended years of opposition to back the compromise proposal.
Confederate flag--A Times story April 13 said the South Carolina Senate had voted to remove the state's Confederate battle flag--also referred to as the Stars and Bars--from atop the statehouse dome. While some South Carolinians have routinely used Stars and Bars interchangeably with that flag, the term actually refers to the first national banner flown by the Confederate states.
The bill, backed by Gov. Jim Hodges, would move the Stars and Bars from its perch beneath the U.S. and state Palmetto flag above the dome and remove similar banners from inside the legislative chambers to a spot outside the Statehouse, behind a memorial for Confederate soldiers. Under the agreement, the Rebel banner could fly no higher than 20 feet above the ground.
Senators who had loudly backed the flag's presence for decades conceded that the mounting financial toll of an eight-month boycott led by the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People had become unbearable. Tourism industry officials say the boycott has pinched their profits, and on Wednesday, tennis star Serena Williams announced she was pulling out of the state's Family Circle Cup competition.
An emotional six-hour prologue to the vote took on the passionate air of a war memorial service. White legislators talked movingly of dead Confederate ancestors. Black senators conjured up the dread and determination of the Civil Rights struggle.
"I'm gonna miss it," said Sen. Glenn F. McConnell, a Son of the Confederacy member and flag partisan who was one of several key negotiators who shuttled between Senate offices late Tuesday, hammering out the details of the compromise. He said he "already has a sense of loss for the moment when I look up at the dome and the flag isn't there anymore."
Several black senators said their votes were no less difficult than those cast by flag supporters worried about the reactions of Confederate "heritage" groups. At least two abstained and another, Darrell Jackson, said NAACP officials "gave him looks of betrayal" when he discussed the matter before the vote.
