Jun 23, 2015 4 min read

It took only more than a half century and a mass murder of black churchgoers by a white racist with an affinity for the most enduring symbol of the Old South, but it seems officials in South Carolina might finally be moving toward taking the Confederate flag off the Statehouse grounds.

While others were hem-hawing and Republican presidential candidates were mostly ducking for political cover, it was former GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney who got the ball rolling in the aftermath of last week’s massacre of a pastor and eight parishioners in a black church in Charleston. Over the weekend, Romney wrote on Twitter, “Take down the Confederate flag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor Charleston victims.”

Some of the more cynical among us might say that it’s easy for Romney to say that now, since he’s not running for anything, but Romney has a history of opposing the flag when he was running for the nation’s top office. In 2008, Romney attracted the ire of many in his party when he said, “That flag shouldn’t be flown. That’s not a flag I recognize.”

And what of those who are currently running for the GOP presidential nomination? Well, most of them spent the weekend saying as little as possible, no doubt fearful of angering many white voters in a state that holds a key primary.

Most said something to the effect that “the state should decide,” though credit should be given to Jeb Bush, who as Florida governor in 2001 ordered the Confederate flag removed from the grounds of that state’s Old Capitol building. He said Saturday that the flag at the South Carolina Statehouse ultimately should be taken down.

The person who really should be ashamed is U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican who seemed to think that the removal of the flag from atop the Statehouse and its relocation to a spot of honor on the capitol grounds in 2000 was compromise enough.

Said Graham, “You could probably visit other places in the country near some symbol that doesn’t quite strike you right.” But, said the senator, the flag is “part of who we are,” and “it works here.” We doubt that black South Carolinians share that view.

By Monday, however, Graham had seen the light and was standing beside Republican Gov. Nikki Haley as she made her call for state legislators to take the necessary steps for the flag to be taken down.

Those who support the flag, who adorn their clothing and vehicles with it, are fond of saying that displaying the banner is about honoring their “heritage.” We wonder what sort of delusions they have about that heritage, because it’s clear to us that it’s a history marked by treason, hatred, lynchings and the enslavement of a people. Are those memories that they really want to be honoring? Or is it more a message to present-day black South Carolinians that they are still regarded by many in that state as second-class citizens, inferior to whites?

South Carolina was among the states that fought tooth and nail, up until a time well within the memory of many folks reading this piece, against desegregation. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, a veritable deity in the Palmetto State, was one of the nation’s most virulent racists. Another of South Carolina’s leading segregationists, longtime state Senate leader L. Marion Gressette, is the namesake of one of the main office buildings in the Statehouse complex. It is a state that, in many corners, is still fighting the Civil War.

But enough is enough. That flag, that symbol of a deep and abiding evil, needs to come down, as soon as possible. Does that solve the race problem in South Carolina and elsewhere in this country? Absolutely not. But it’s a positive step – one small but visible step – in the right direction.

The ball is now in the court of the state Legislature, where both houses must vote by a two-thirds majority in order for the flag to be removed. If those who consider themselves leaders in that state fail to take this action, they might as well add a noose and a “No Colored” sign to their display, because those are the symbols they are venerating.