As South Carolina debates Confederate flag, controversy spreads to other states that display it

Debate over whether the Confederate flag should continue to fly outside South Carolina’s statehouse has taken center stage in the nation's ongoing conversation about race in the wake of the Charleston church shooting the killed nine African-American parishioners.

And outrage aimed at those who defend the flag as a symbol of Southern pride and heritage has only intensified since images of alleged gunman Dylann Roof brandishing the Confederate insignia surfaced over the weekend, along with a hate-filled manifesto expressing white supremacist views.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, called Monday for the flag's removal, a break from her past stance on the issue.

“We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer," she said. "The fact that people are choosing to use it as a sign of hate is something we cannot stand."

South Carolina lawmakers could vote as soon as this week on whether to remove the flag from the capitol's grounds, but its legacy is still entrenched in other parts of the American South. The controversy that reached a tipping point in South Carolina has already spread to some of the other states that still hang on to symbols of the South's Confederate past.

“The truth is that the symbol is slowly disappearing. Now that we have a face to put to the flag, Dylann Roof, the shift against the flag has been shockingly quick. And that’s a good thing,” Heidi Beirich, director of the intelligence project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an interview with Yahoo News.

Democratic presidential front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech Tuesday, in her first comments on the flag debate since the shooting, that she supports Haley’s call to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.

"Recognizing it as a symbol of our nation’s racist past that has no place in our present or our future, it shouldn’t fly there. It shouldn’t fly anywhere," Clinton said at Christ the King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Mo.

Here is a look at other states that are re-examining public displays of the flag:

Mississippi

Mississippi is the only state that still includes the “Rebel Flag” in its official state flag.

In 1894, former Gov. John Marshall Stone, a Confederate veteran, signed into law the bill that created the flag, which was designed by then-Sen. E.N. Scudder, according to historian David G. Sansing.

“My father loved the memory of the valor and courage of those brave men who wore the grey,” Scudder’s daughter Fayssoux Scudder Corneil said during an address to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1924. “He told me that it was a simple matter for him to design the flag because he wanted to perpetuate in a legal and lasting way that dear battle flag under which so many of our people had so gloriously fought.”

Magnolia State voters were given the opportunity to remove the Confederate symbol from the canton in 2001 but chose to keep it by a 2-to-1 margin.

“Almost everyone who was white voted to keep it. Almost everybody that was black voted to take it down,” Beirich said.

On Monday, Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn, a Republican, called for the Confederate element to be removed from the flag.

"As a Christian, I believe our state's flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed," he said. "We need to begin having conversations about changing Mississippi's flag."

Georgia

From 1956 until 2001, Georgia had a state flag that prominently displayed a square Confederate battle flag beside a blue section with the state seal.

It was initially adopted in the mid-1950s to show opposition to desegregation following the landmark Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.

It was finally changed, amid opposition from groups that celebrate the South's Confederate past, to a predominantly blue flag that included its predecessor as one of five flags to honor the state’s history.

But this flag was so unpopular that it was changed once again in 2003 to its current incarnation, which was based on the Confederacy’s first national flag, colloquially called the "Stars and Bars."

Other references

Arkansas’ flag also includes a reference to the Confederacy. It has four stars that represent the four governments that ruled the state: France, Spain, the United States and the Confederacy.

Similarly, a mosaic inside the Texas state capitol has the seals of the six “countries” — recognized or not — that have governed Texas, including the Confederate States of America.

Many southern states still have official holidays dedicated to honoring the Confederacy.

Texas, for instance, celebrates Confederate Heroes Day on January 19, one day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Florida recognizes Confederate Memorial Day as a legal holiday on April 26.

Others, including Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee, celebrate the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Connection with Dylann Roof

The controversy surrounding the flag’s continued use in the modern South was reawakened after Roof allegedly shot and killed nine African-Americans at a historically black church in what authorities have called a hate crime.

Days after the massacre in South Carolina's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a website linked to the accused gunman surfaced. It included his alleged racist manifesto and dozens of photos of Roof posing with the Confederate flag.

These pictures show the 21-year-old suspect standing outside the Museum and Library of Confederate History, burning the American flag and waving the Confederate flag while holding a gun.

The Confederate battle flag has been adopted by white supremacist groups all over the world.

“If you look at skinhead music, you see the battle flag on album covers and on T-shirts,” Beirich said. “For neo-Nazis, their first love is Hitler and Nazi Germany… after that comes the Confederate battle flag, probably the second most prominent symbol.”

On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, announced that his state would no longer allow specialty license plates from the Sons of Confederate Veterans group that include the divisive emblem.

NAACP President and CEO Cornell William Brooks said in a statement that his organization, which has advocated for the Confederate flag’s removal for 15 years, would intensify its “economic, political and moral pressure” if South Carolina refuses to take the flag down.

“The Southern region of our country is known for its hospitality,” he said. “Nothing is more hospitable than creating an environment of inclusion for people of all races, colors, creeds and faiths.”