Mass. governor: Confederate flag should be up to states
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) on Thursday said states should have the power to decide whether to fly the Confederate flag at their individual capitols.
His remarks were responding to fresh controversy over the Southern emblem’s use in Columbia, S.C., according to The Boston Globe.
“As a citizen of this country and what’s happened, particularly to African-Americans in that state, what’s your reaction to that, in 2015?” asked WGBH radio host Jim Braude while interviewing Baker on Thursday, the report said.
{mosads}“The farther government gets away from the people, the more nervous I get about the way it behaves, and my view on stuff like this is that South Carolinians can make their own call,” Baker responded, according to the Globe.
“I do believe that the reason that flag still hangs there is, you know, what I would call sort of ‘tradition’ or something like that,” he added. “And there’s certainly a heated debate that’s gone on over the years down there about that.”
The Charleston Post and Courier reported Thursday that two Confederate flags in Columbia remained at full-mast that afternoon.
The first, it said, was a banner in front of the South Carolina State Capitol building.
The second was on display at a monument to Confederate soldiers located elsewhere in Columbia.
Officials told The Charleston Post and Courier both emblems remained untouched because their status is protected under state law. The South Carolina legislature decides when and if such flags go up or down.
Critics charged that the flags’ appearance is insensitive following a mass shooting in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday evening.
Nine people were killed when the alleged gunman opened fire at Emanuel African Methodist Church during a service there that night.
Police captured the suspected shooter Thursday morning after a 14-hour manhunt ended in Shelby, N.C., approximately 250 miles from the crime scene.
Dylann Storm Roof, 21, was apprehended after a tip about “suspicious activity” in his car.
Roof reportedly uttered racial epithets while attacking congregants at Emanuel AMC on Wednesday evening.
One of his victims was Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and a state senator.
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