Of the words stirred by passion in the debate that eventually led lawmakers to vote to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds, hers would burn themselves into memory.

But eventually Horne, a white Republican representative from a town near Charleston, looked over to her black legislative friends. Then she really, tearfully, got going.

"I cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body," she said, pausing to swallow her sobs, then raising her voice to shout, "to do something meaningful, such as take a symbol of hate off these grounds on Friday."

"And if any of you vote to amend, you are ensuring that this flag will fly beyond Friday. And for the widow of Sen. (Clementa) Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury, and I will not be a part of it."