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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

South Carolina Senate votes to remove Confederate flag

William Cheek, left, Nelson Waller, center, and Jim Collins protest proposals to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse on Monday in Columbia, S.C. (Associated Press)
Jeffrey Collins Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Senate voted Monday to pull the Confederate flag off the Capitol grounds, clearing the way for a historic measure that could remove the banner more than five decades after it was first flown above the Statehouse to protest integration.

A second vote will be needed today to send the proposal to the House, where it faces a less certain future. But Monday’s 37-3 vote was well over the two-thirds majority needed to advance the bill.

If the House passes the same measure, the flag and flagpole could be removed as soon as Gov. Nikki Haley signs the papers. The flag would be lowered for the last time and shipped off to the state’s Confederate Relic Room, near where the last Confederate flag to fly over the Statehouse dome is stored.

The vote came at the end of a day of debate in which several white senators said they had come to understand why their black colleagues felt the flag no longer represented the valor of Southern soldiers but the racism that led the South to separate from the United States more than 150 years ago.

As the senators spoke, the desk of their slain colleague, Clementa Pinckney, was still draped in black cloth. Pinckney and eight other black people were fatally shot June 17 during Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston. Authorities have charged a gunman who posed for pictures with the rebel banner. Police say he was driven by racial hatred.

Several senators said the grace shown by the families of the victims willing to forgive the gunman also changed their minds.

“We now have the opportunity, the obligation, to put the exclamation point on an extraordinary narrative of good and evil, of love and mercy that will take its place in the history books,” said Sen. Tom Davis, a Republican.

After the vote, Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Democrat whose suggestion that the flag be taken down while running for governor last year was called a “stunt” by Haley, was given a high-five from a fellow legislator.

“I thought it would happen, but never this fast,” Sheheen said.

The Senate rejected three amendments. One would have put a different Confederate flag on the pole. A second would fly the flag only on Confederate Memorial Day, and the third would leave the flag’s fate up to a popular vote.

The bill is expected to be sent directly to the House floor Wednesday with several amendments offered, said Republican Rep. Greg Delleney, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which would normally receive the bill before it got to the floor.

If any amendments pass, a conference committee would probably be needed to hash out differences.