EXCLUSIVE: Lawmakers tour Confederate flag’s likely new home

With S.C. lawmakers ready to move the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds, about 30 members of the House of Representatives toured the banner’s expected new home Tuesday a mile down Gervais Street — the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.

The Confederate flag would be displayed along with a memorial wall containing the names of 21,500 South Carolina soldiers killed in the Civil War, museum staff suggested to lawmakers Tuesday.

The battle flag could come down as early as Thursday. The House begins debate Wednesday on a bill that has passed the Senate. Two more votes are required before the bill goes to the governor.

Moving the Confederate flag off the Capitol grounds after five decades has become a legislative priority after nine African-American parishioners were murdered at a Charleston church June 17 in what authorities called a hate crime.

“The flag has been used as a racist symbol by some,” said Rep. Rick Quinn, a Lexington Republican who organized the museum trip that included many lawmakers who had never visited the Relic Room. “We need to find a way to remember the men who fought under that flag, 98 percent of whom never owned a slave, but answered the call of the politicians.”

Quinn and Speaker Pro Tempore Tommy Pope, R-York, said discussions are being held on how to remove the flag in front of a Confederate soldiers’ monument on the north side of the State House.

The flag could be lowered by Citadel cadets, they said, as was the case when the Confederate flags were removed from the State House dome and the two chambers of the Legislature and taken to the State Museum in 2000. “It needs to be done with honor,” Pope said.

The bill calls for the flag to go on display at the Confederate Relic Room, which is in the same converted mill as the State Museum on Gervais Street.

Relic Room director Allen Roberson told touring lawmakers on Tuesday the flag and names of Civil War dead could be displayed either:

▪  On wall in a special room in the museum, along with other appropriate flags and artifacts.

▪  Flown with a monument in an existing second-floor courtyard with names of the dead engraved on walls. The courtyard faces the Congaree River.

But Roberson, whose museum became an independent state agency from the Budget and Control Board on July 1, said he had no budget to pay for the display. He did not have any cost estimates. Lawmakers said they would try to help.

“This is new territory for the Relic Room,” Quinn said. “What's important is that we give support to them so they can handle this.”

The group touring the museum Tuesday included a contingent of African-American lawmakers.

They said they were impressed by the array of flags and artifacts, which includes flags from black regiments that fought for the Union. Many posed for pictures with the displays.

The museum also houses artifacts and flags from the Revolution through Iraq and Afghanistan. State Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, has his combat uniform from Afghanistan on display there.

“This is where the flag deserves to be, in this museum,” said state Rep. Harold Mitchell, a Spartanburg Democrat and a past leader of the Black Legislative Caucus. “Here we can tell the history of these soldiers. It's important and it's past due.”

State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg, said she had never visited the Relic Room despite being a member of the neighboring State Museum. She suggested Relic Room staff return next year with a recommendation of how to embrace cultural diversity including African-Americans and Native Americans.

The Relic Room was established in 1896 by the Wade Hampton Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The museum contains hundreds of artifacts donated by returning soldiers, prominent citizens and politicians. The House and Senate overrode a budget veto Tuesday so the state could pay $390,000 for a private collection of artifacts for the Relic Room. The collection was valued at $800,000, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Brian White, R-Anderson, said.

The artifacts have moved around. They were first housed in the State House and then the World War Memorial Building on the University of South Carolina campus. The museum was moved to its present location in 2002.

The tour gave lawmakers a chance to see how their solution to the flag controversy might work.

Greenville Republican Garry Smith, a USC history graduate who had not been to the museum before, said: "I think some of the plans would be appropriate. It helps when you actually see it."

This story was originally published July 7, 2015 at 9:54 PM with the headline "EXCLUSIVE: Lawmakers tour Confederate flag’s likely new home."