Tears, family memories emerge during Confederate flag debate

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The South Carolina House opened what could be its final debate over the Confederate flag Wednesday, deliberating a proposal that might remove the banner from the Capitol grounds before the end of the week.

There were tears of anger and shared memories of Civil War ancestors as House members debated into the night.

So far, they hadn't changed the Senate bill, supported by Gov. Nikki Haley, that would remove the banner and the pole where it flies.

The closest vote came on an amendment to place a different flag -- one that flew over Confederate troops that looks similar to the state flag -- beside the monument to Confederate soldiers at the front of the Statehouse. It failed on a 61-56 vote.

Changing the bill would mean it will take weeks or months to remove the flag, perhaps blunting momentum that has grown since nine black churchgoers were killed last month during Bible study at a historic African-American church in Charleston.

Rep. Christopher Corley, R-Aiken, shows his frustration by waving a white flag of surrender during debate over the bill. (John Bazemore ~ Associated Press)

Republican Rep. Jenny Horne reminded her colleagues she was a descendent of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and scolded fellow members of her party for stalling the debate with dozens of amendments.

She cried from the front of the House as she remembered the funeral of her slain colleague state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church, gunned down with eight others as his wife and daughter locked themselves in an office.

"For the widow of Senator Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury, and I will not be a part of it!" she screamed into a microphone.

Opponents of removing the flag talked about grandparents who passed down family treasures and lamented the flag had been "hijacked" or "abducted" by racists.

Rep. Mike Pitts, who remembered playing with a Confederate ancestor's cavalry sword while growing up, said for him the flag is a reminder of how dirt-poor Southern farmers fought Yankees not because they hated blacks or supported slavery, but because their land was being invaded.

Those soldiers should be respected as soldiers who fought in the Middle East or Afghanistan, he said, recalling his military service. Pitts turned to a lawmaker he called a dear friend, recalling how his black colleague nearly died in Vietnam.

"I'm willing to move that flag at some point if it causes a twinge in the hearts of my friends," Pitts said. "But I'll ask for something in return."

The debate began less than a day after the U.S. House voted to ban the display of Confederate flags at historic federal cemeteries in the Deep South.

House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford said Democrats are united behind the Senate bill, which would send the flag to the state's Confederate Relic Room -- the same resting place for the final rebel flag that flew over the Statehouse dome until it was taken down in 2000.

Democrats don't want any new flag going up because it "will be the new vestige of racism," Rutherford said.

Under the Senate proposal, the Confederate flag would have to come down within 24 hours of the governor signing the bill.

If the House changes the bill, the Senate has already agreed to reject it, meaning a conference committee will have to be set up to hash out the differences, and then lawmakers will have to return to vote again.

If the two sides cannot reach an agreement, or the House rejects the Senate bill, the flag debate would probably be dead for this year.

For the most part, black House members didn't join the debate, allowing the Republicans on either side of the issue talk to each other.

Rep. Joe Neal, a Democrat elected in 1992 who has been fighting to take down the flag ever since, told opponents he respected their position even if he disagreed with them and was glad the debate remained civil.

"I'm proud to see this body come to a point where collectively we can talk about it, where we can come to grips with it and do it in a fashion that makes South Carolina and the country proud," Neal said.

In Washington, the vote by the U.S. House followed a brief debate on a measure funding the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries, most of which contain graves of Civil War soldiers.

The proposal by California Democrat Jared Huffman would block the Park Service from allowing private groups to decorate the graves of Southern soldiers with Confederate flags in states that commemorate Confederate Memorial Day. The cemeteries affected are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi.

Also Wednesday, state police said they were investigating an unspecified number of threats against South Carolina lawmakers debating the flag. Police Chief Mark Keel said lawmakers on both sides of the issue had been threatened, but he did not specify which ones.