Confederate Flag Taken Down: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to Remove Flag From Statehouse on Friday
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is set to sign a bill Thursday afternoon that will remove the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds.
Gov. Haley announced that she will sign the bill at 4 p.m. ET, which will give the flag 24 hours to be removed from a Confederate memorial near the Statehouse. The flag will then come down at 10 a.m. Friday, according to a tweet posted by Haley's deputy chiefs of staff, reports USA Today.
The landmark legislation was passed after the South Carolina House of Representatives held an intense 15-hour debate over the controversial flag, which began on Wednesday and ended early Thursday. House legislators spent hours sorting through dozens of amendments before voting on the actual bill around 1 a.m. Thursday morning. They then approved it in a 94-20 vote.
At one point during the debate, Republican State House Rep. Jenny Anderson Horne delivered a tearful and impassioned speech pleading with her fellow Republicans not to amend the Senate bill, which would prolong its passage for weeks or even months.
"Shame on us. Shame on the House. I cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body to do something meaningful such as take a symbol of hate off these grounds on Friday," she said.
Despite being a descendant of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Horne said that arguments to keep the flag to maintain the state's heritage are irrelevant.
"That does not matter. It's not about Jenny Horne. It's about the people of South Carolina who have demanded that this symbol of hate come off of the Statehouse grounds," she said.
Following the vote, Gov. Haley released a statement praising the House for approving the bill.
"Today, as the Senate did before them, the House of Representatives has served the State of South Carolina and her people with great dignity," Haley said on Facebook, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I'm grateful for their service and their compassion. It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state."
Debate over the flag reignited after a racist white man named Dylann Roof viciously murdered nine people praying inside of a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17. Before the attack, the professed gunman posed with the flag and allegedly embraced it as a symbol of white supremacy.
The controversial flag was first raised over the State House in 1961 to mark the 100-year anniversary of the Civil War. It was also raised as a symbol of white resistance to the growing Civil Rights movement and effort to end segregation.
Watch Rep. Jenny Horne's impassioned speech below.
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