Meet The Fiercest Defenders Of The Confederate Flag In South Carolina
... in November 1999, then-state Sen. Joe Wilson (R), who now serves in Congress and famously heckled the president with “you lie” during the State of the Union speech, said, “That’s offensive to me that they would take my heritage and make it into a Holocaust era-type description. I find that very offensive, and it’s not true. The Southern heritage, the Confederate heritage is very honorable.”
State Sen. Verne Smith (a Democrat who switched parties to give Republicans a majority in 2001, the first time since Reconstruction) told the Observer at the time, “We’ve heard so much from the NAACP since then about how sorry all my ancestors were … I’m just not going to vote to take it down on that basis.” In February 2000, he said, “My heart tells me we are not going to work it out spitting on our forefathers and ancestors.” Smith died in 2006 at the age of 81.
Former State Sen. Glenn McConnell (R), who once called the removal of the flag “cultural genocide” before the tide turned in the late 1990s, was at first resolute in opposing removal. “This state is not going to succumb to economic terrorism. We are a democratic government and don’t take dictates well.”
"Race relations will not be the same in this state in my lifetime if you take that flag down,” Republican state Sen. Harvey Peeler said, according to an Associated Press report in April 2000. He said “the rebels would yell” if the flag was removed because they do not want to be told what to do. Peeler currently serves as Senate Majority leader.
Read more at:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/06/22/3672442/south-carolina-legislators-refused-take-confederate-flag-90s/
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