Wednesday night, a white man walked into a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and shot nine parishioners. Today, a Confederate flag is flying on the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse in Columbia — as it does every day. While the flags on top of the statehouse itself are flying at half-mast, the Confederate flag (displayed at a Civil War memorial) is flying at full mast.
South Carolina’s Confederate flag is still flying. It’s an insult to Charleston’s victims.
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy, The Reactionary Spirit, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here.
This is more than just an awkward juxtaposition. As Cornell historian Edward Baptist explains in a series of chilling tweets, the Confederate flag isn’t just a symbol of the pro-slavery rebellion, it’s also a symbol of post-Civil War white supremacy — including the KKK and other groups that expressed that supremacy violently, at times by attacking black churches. That it’s flying today, after what Charleston police are describing as a hate crime, is profoundly ugly:
SC's stars and bars flag started as the battle flag of proslavery traitors who refused to accept an election's results.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 In the course of Civil War, the flag became the symbol of not only slavery and treason, but the murder of black soldiers.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 In the 1950s, the battle flag was revived not just as a symbol of resistance to federally mandated desegregation.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 The stars and bars was also a symbol of terror: of the violent intimidation of African Americans who dared assert their rights.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 The stars and bars promised lynching, police violence against protestors and others. And violence against churches.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 SC's state flag is a flag of slavery. But it is also a flag of terrorism.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 That terror is among other things anti-religious and particularly, anti-Christian.Churches have been bombed & burned for what it symbolizes.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 Ministers, worshippers, people singing hymns have been attacked time and time again by those who serve it and those who wave it.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 So here we are again.SC may lower the pro-terrorism, proslavery, anti-religious flag to half mast for a day.But they plan to raise it again.
— Edward Baptist (@Ed_Baptist) June 18, 2015 The flag is still a live controversy in South Carolina. In October 2014, Governor Nikki Haley defended it as unproblematic for the state’s business, saying, “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”
WATCH: President Obama speaks about South Carolina
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