S.C. Confederate veterans group vows to stop flag’s removal

A Confederate veterans group plans to try to stop efforts to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds in the wake of a mass murder at a Charleston church last week.

Leland Summers, commander of the S.C. division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said Thursday that he would not disclose those plans until after the nine victims slain at Emanuel AME Church are buried.

Those burials started Thursday at the same time that the S.C. leader of the veterans group met with reporters at the State House in front of the flag, placed on the grounds in 2000 as part of compromise to remove it from the Capitol dome.

“The fight is not over,” said Dickie Phalen, a Sons of Confederate Veterans member from Reevesville.

Surrounded by more than 20 supporters, Summers said the efforts to remove the flag and other Confederate monuments dishonor black soldiers who fought for the South as well as those killed at Emanuel, including its pastor Clementa Pinckney, a Democratic state senator from Ridgeland.

“Do not attempt to convince me that this is what the victims of the Charleston massacre wanted,” Summers said. “Attempting to use this horrible crime … to remove historical markers and monuments – and to deface them – is despicable, shameful and disrespects them. If Sen. Pinckney was here with us today, he would call for peace and unity, not destruction and discord.”

State Sen. Vincent Sheheen, a Kershaw County Democrat who was Pinckney’s deskmate in the Senate, disagreed with Summers’ interpretation of what the minister-legislator would have wanted to happen after the murders.

“Knowing Clem, he would think part of peace and unity would be removing the Confederate flag to bring people together,” Sheheen said.

At the Sons of Confederate Veterans event, a lone protester carried a sign encouraging drivers to honk their horns if they wanted the flag taken down, while school children stopped to watch Summers.

Summers said accused church shooter Dylann Roof, whom he called a “wicked nut case,” is getting the race war that he told friends that he wanted.

“We played right into his malicious hands,” Summers said. “He laughs at our faces and saying, ‘Look at what I did.’ ”

S.C. lawmakers voted this week to debate removing the flag from the State House grounds. They are expected to take up that proposal soon after July Fourth.

Gov. Nikki Haley and other S.C. political leaders called for the flag’s removal Monday.

Minutes before the Confederate veterans’ news conference, Glenn McConnell, an architect of the 2000 flag compromise as a state senator and a Sons of Confederate Veterans’ member, called for moving the flag from the State House grounds.

“That’s his prerogative,” Summers said.

While Summers said he did not want to debate the flag’s legacy, he spent a portion of his 30-minute news conference doing that.

He said the U.S. flag flew over ships carrying slaves and has been carried by marchers spouting racist remarks. “I guess we ought to take the American flag out of sight also.”

Summers blamed the anti-flag movement on “unscrupulous opportunists” from outside the state who, he said, have created hatred and division.

Summers said his group, which has 3,000 members statewide, does not condone racists who use the flag as a symbol for their causes.

“It’s not a flag or carved stone that makes people hate each other,” he added. “It’s how we decide in our hearts how we treat each other.”

Summers extended his condolences to the families of the slain Emanuel Nine by naming each of the victims and briefly describing their lives.

“We, as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, grieve today with each family member of these victims,” Summers said. “We cannot take away their hurt, but we will hurt with them.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2015 at 1:00 PM with the headline "S.C. Confederate veterans group vows to stop flag’s removal."