Scott Brinton

Erasing racism in South Carolina, and on L.I.

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On July 10, South Carolina finally decided to join the Union for good when it removed the Confederate battle flag from its State House grounds in Columbia, its capital.

South Carolina, of course, was one of 11 states to secede from the United States in 1861, seeking to preserve a centuries-old system of forced labor that enriched the coffers of white plantation owners but dehumanized hundreds of thousands of slaves. South Carolina was, in fact, the first state to cut ties with the Union, which was increasingly seeking to abolish slavery.

According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, more than 12 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the New World from 1525 to 1866, roughly 388,000 of whom were brought to the U.S. Others went to plantations in the Caribbean and South America.

Southerners, South Carolinians in particular, never could quite get over the Union Army’s “invasion” of the Confederate states, it seemed. South Carolina raised the long-derided Stars and Bars flag above its State House in the 1960s, amid the civil rights movement. It’s often confused as the Confederate flag, but the Confederacy actually had three others, according to NPR. Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia carried the Stars and Bars into battle.

South Carolina’s decision to fly Lee’s flag was clearly intended as a symbolic gesture, and the message was clear: While Washington might believe it governed South Carolina, it didn’t. South Carolina would not fully accept civil rights as a matter of public policy. It would carry on, a Deep South holdout unwilling to accord African-Americans equal rights.

Then, on June 17, a gunman –– a lone, bigoted gunman –– opened fire at the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, killing nine African-Americans as they prayed. Before the shooting, the alleged killer, 21-year-old Dylan Roof, posted photos of himself brandishing the Confederate battle flag on social media, according to authorities.

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