Changes in South Carolina paving way for flag’s removal

In 1978, Dick Riley was in a tough primary battle for governor with then Lt. Gov. Brantley Harvey of Beaufort.

He was asked on SCETV if the Confederate flag should be taken down from the State House dome – an issue just being raised by some of the state’s first 20th century African-American lawmakers, such as Columbia’s Kay Patterson.

“I had to respond to it spontaneously,” said Riley, now 83. “I said I understood the heritage issue, but a large number of South Carolinians see it as a symbol of segregation and hate. I said I would prefer to see it taken off the Capitol dome. The question surprised me. It wasn’t a big issue then.”

Times change. In the decades that followed, the flag has become the primary political lens through which the world views the state. In the past two weeks, it has turned into South Carolina’s No. 1 political issue since the apparent racially motivated massacre in Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston.

In 1987, 75 percent of South Carolinians backed having the flag on the State House dome, including 32 percent of African-Americans, according to a study by the University of South Carolina entitled “The South Carolina Confederate Flag: The Politics of Race and Citizenship,” published in December 2001.

By 1999, that number had dropped to 47 percent, with 5 percent of African-Americans agreeing, the study showed. The next year, 13 percent of all South Carolinians wanted the flag to remain.

Experts cite myriad reasons for the public’s change of heart: The passage of time, the influx of non-natives, higher education and income levels.

The change of positions by the state’s politicians also is a result of a range of forces, they said:

▪  Opposition to the flag by the business community and church organizations, including the powerful Southern Baptist Convention

▪  A constant drumbeat for removal by increasingly powerful black politicians

▪  Aspirations of local politicians to be more appealing nationally

“It’s more than one thing,” said Laura Woliver, who has taught political science at USC for 30 years and was a co-author of the study. “It was a confluence of things.”

Then in 2000, the state’s First in the South presidential primary drew national and international media to Columbia. The Confederate flag was featured prominently and repeatedly in their coverage, bolstered by the massive King Day at the Dome march that year, the largest demonstration in South Carolina history.

Still, Strom Thurmond, once an arch-segregationist, was the state’s U.S. senator as he approached age 100. Jim Clyburn was recently elected as the only African-American in the state’s congressional delegation.

“There was always an undercurrent of opposition to the flag,” Woliver said. “But it took off in 2000. The eyes of the world were on us. And everything changed.”

‘Segregation was everywhere’

The flag was put up in 1961, ostensibly to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. It was first flown from a pole on the State House grounds. In 1962, it was elevated to the State House dome by the Legislature.

It was a time of stunning social change powered by the push for integration of schools and voting rights for blacks. Many view the raising of the flag on the State House dome as an act of defiance of these initiatives, which were mandated by the federal government.

Gov. Fritz Hollings of Charleston even presented President John F. Kennedy with a Confederate flag when he made a trip to the state.

“It was put up at the very moment (blacks) were struggling to get voting rights,” said USC historian Bobby Donaldson.

“There was segregation everywhere in this state,” Woliver said. “A black person wasn’t allowed to walk across the University of South Carolina campus.”

At the time, the state had about half as many people as the 4.6 million that live here today, according to the U.S. Census. Whites outnumbered blacks by 722,000.

The median income of a white family in 1960 was $3,821 a year. A black family took home $1,699. Today a white family earns about $63,000 a year; an African-American family makes about $35,000.

Only 8.5 percent of white South Carolinians had a four-year college education in 1960. Only 3 percent of African-Americans had a diploma. Today those numbers are 30 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively.

More than 80 percent of South Carolina residents in 1960 were born here, compared with a little more than 60 percent today.

The state is also becoming more urban than rural, more coastal than interior, experts said. More people are moving here from other states and countries: retirees and out-of-state workers.

“As the growing urban centers change and the coastal areas change, people have a different view of history,” Donaldson said. “People are better educated and better paid. And in the 1960s there was limited contact (between the races), a limited number of diverse encounters.”

But he said, there still are areas that remain mostly unchanged.

“Our state is changing, but in many rural areas the status quo is consistent,” Donaldson said. “Our state government is a reflection of the entire state. (Rural white lawmakers) are not getting the phone calls from people” to bring down the flag.

‘Don’t make Dorothy cry’

Economic and political pragmatism, in addition to social change, also have and are contributing to the flag debate, experts said.

South Carolina is in very tough competition with other states to attract manufacturers and other businesses as well as the jobs they create. Having the Confederate flag flown by state government is seen as a competitive disadvantage, Donaldson said.

BMW, Michelin, Boeing, Sonoco and some of the state’s other largest employers last week called for the flag’s removal.

“Those companies don’t want to come to a place where there are political distractions,” Donaldson said. “They don’t want to confront those headlines.”

Also, politicians such as U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is running for president, and Gov. Nikki Haley, who is said to have national ambitions, view support for the flag as a negative to the wider national electorate, Donaldson said.

Haley’s call for removal of the flag drew praise from President Barack Obama Friday during his eulogy for slain state Sen. Clementa Pickney.

Obama added his voice to the call for taking the flag from the State House grounds, saying, “It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history, a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds.

“It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union,” the president said. “By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.

“It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought – the cause of slavery – was wrong. The imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong,” Obama said.

Haley’s announcement on Monday “brought her name farther up the short list for national candidacy,” Donaldson said.

Alex Sanders, a former state senator, former appeals court chief judge and former president of the College of Charleston, gave his first speech against the flag in 1967. He said gradual changes in demographics don’t mean much in this debate.

“Things have changed more in the last seven days than they have since I gave that first speech,” Sanders said. “What caused the change was the blood of nine innocent people in a church. Sometimes tragedy and horror are necessary for dramatic change. That’s been the lesson of history ever since Jesus.”

Sanders told the story of Dorothy, a maid on the College of Charleston campus.

One day she passed him as he was leaving the president’s office, crying. He asked her why. She said the boys of the fraternity house she cleaned had put up a Confederate flag.

“I love those boys and don’t mind cleaning up their mess,” she said. “Why do they hate me?”

Sanders said the effect the flag has on all people should be considered.

“That’s why we should take down the Confederate flag,” Sanders said. “So we don’t make Dorothy cry.”

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 6:26 PM with the headline "Changes in South Carolina paving way for flag’s removal."