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The American flag and the South Carolina state flag are flying at half-staff at the state's capitol after a gunman murdered nine people at a Bible study at the historic Emanuel AME church Wednesday night.
The Confederate flag on the capitol grounds, on the other hand, is still flying at its usual height, 30 feet in the air, lighted at night. And it isn't going anywhere. A compromise that took the flag down from over the statehouse in 2000 did all it could to make sure it didn't budge any further from the seat of state government. Moving it requires a two-thirds vote from the state's general assembly.
A mass murder apparently motivated by white supremacy has sparked yet another debate about what the Confederate flag really symbolizes. Yet the facts of the matter are clear: from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement, the flag has always been about white supremacy. It's always been embraced hardest when white Southerners felt most threatened. Fights over the South Carolina Capitol's Confederate flag have been going on for more than 40 years.
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