From flag protests to presidential politics: SC’s King Day at the Dome turns 20
As a political fight brewed over the Confederate flag, flying in late 1999 above the State House dome and hanging inside both state legislative chambers, flag supporters were planning a rally at the State House in January 2000 to demand the battle flag remain unfurled and flying high.
So African American leaders from the Columbia Urban League, the South Carolina Baptist Education and Missionary Convention, the NAACP and other groups wanted to counter that message with one of their own: It’s time to bring the flag down.
“It didn’t make any sense to me. It was very inconsistent with the beliefs of equality, justice, equity, ... and I wanted to see this state become a better state,” David Swinton, a former Benedict College president and one of the original organizers of what would become King Day at the Dome, recently told The State. “If you see something and feel this is wrong, you have an obligation to try to do something about it.”
So organizers started planning an event where they wanted tens of thousands of people to come to the State House to call for the removal of the Confederate flag. What they eventually accomplished was a a march from Zion Baptist Church in Columbia to the State House of more than 46,000 people, according to media reports on Martin Luther King Day, which that year fell on Jan. 17, 2000.
The King Day turnout eclipsed the crowd of 6,000 that reportedly attended the pro-flag rally earlier that month.
“It was a very solemn occasion where people came together and stood outside for two hours, and they came from all over the state for the sole purpose of addressing this injustice,” said James T. McLawhorn, president and CEO of the Columbia Urban League.
“It was the largest gathering for social justice I think in the history of South Carolina.”
On Monday, King Day at Dome, an annual celebration of the life and legacy of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., turns 20 years old. The event, hosted by the S.C. NAACP, has grown from a grassroots effort to mobilize South Carolinians against the Confederate flag to a must-stop for presidential candidates.
The day’s events will begin with a prayer service and march to the State House, where several speakers, including several candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, are expected to give remarks.
‘A voice from the people’
Original organizers of the first King Day at the Dome say it came together quickly. Having the idea for a rally in October 1999 is one thing. Pulling it off in just a few months is another.
On Dec. 9, 1999, about 400 people including African American community leaders gathered at Benedict College, a historically black college in Columbia, to plan the rally at the State House on King Day.
Despite the interest at that meeting, organizers still faced a huge challenge in mobilizing tens of thousands of people to attend the rally. They had fewer than six weeks, over the holiday season and without the benefit of social media, to encourage attendance.
So a grassroots campaign was born to get the word out about the King Day rally.
“We organized around the state, talked to religious leaders and the community leaders in communities around the state,” Swinton said. “We visited those communities, we met with the people there.”
Organizers also didn’t try to engage elected politicians directly.
“We wanted it to be a voice from the people,” Swinton said.
The original King Day at the Dome was followed by other political demonstrations calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from where it flew on top of the State House.
A few months after the first King Day march, there was a five-day march from Charleston to Columbia organized by then Charleston Mayor Joe Riley to protest the Confederate flag being flown over the State House.
After the 2000 King Day at the Dome, lawmakers negotiated a compromise to lower the flag from atop the State House dome to a spot on the State House grounds, flying next to the Confederate Soldier Monument, located in a prominent place near the busy intersection of Main and Gervais streets.
That compromise also recognized Martin Luther King Day and created Confederate Memorial Day as state holidays.
Flag critics weren’t satisfied
Over the years since the flag came down from the State House dome, critics have continued to use King Day at the Dome to protest its presence there.
But the event also focused on other social justice issues as well. Over the years, topics such as education funding, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, racial equality, the state’s voter ID law, mental health, health care reform and immigration have been focuses of the event.
Though first a protest against the Confederate flag, King Day has “always been about the issues surrounding all people but particularly the African American community,” said Mamie Hayes Hartwell, a spokeswoman for the state’s NAACP conference.
“This was a good way of rallying the people to focus on whatever particular mainstream issues the state conference of the NAACP is focusing on,” Hartwell said.
Then, 15 years after the first King Day at the Dome, a tragic racially motivated massacre served as the catalyst for the Confederate flag’s removal from display at the State House.
In 2015, the Confederate flag was completely removed from the State House grounds following the shooting massacre of nine African American parishioners who had gathered for a Bible study at Charleston’s Mother Emanuel AME Church. The victims included state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor.
At King Day 2016, Democratic presidential candidates pushed for gun control reforms and applauded the flag’s removal.
Hillary Clinton, who eventually won the nomination, thanked then-S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley and state lawmakers and said the crowd there couldn’t celebrate King and the Confederacy.
“We had to choose, and South Carolina finally made the right choice.”
Political candidates come to speak
For several years, King Day at the Dome’s grassroots beginnings have intersected with presidential politics.
Invitations are sent to political candidates on both sides of the aisle, as well as organizations to come speak.
McLawhorn, with the Urban League, plans to speak about closing the technology gap that hurts underserved and disadvantaged communities. It touches on a topic that King also preached about: economic justice.
“There are so many people who feel completely left out of society they don’t have a job, they don’t have the skills and I think this transition to automation and technology we see so low skill jobs dissipate. Those jobs won’t be around in the future,” McLawhorn said. “It is critical that we get people with the skills needed in order to compete in this global workforce that we have.”
Hartwell said King Day at the Dome gives groups and organizations doing community work and presidential candidates a platform to share their message with hundreds of people.
The event also has become a must-stop for Democratic presidential candidates, a status that solidified in 2008, when then-candidate Barack Obama spoke at the rally alongside other Democratic presidential hopefuls, former first lady Hillary Clinton and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards.
According to reports and the NAACP, this year the lineup of presidential hopefuls includes (as of late Saturday): former Vice President Joe Biden; former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Hawaii U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick; California billionaire Tom Steyer; and U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota, Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, and Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts.
The original organizers said they did not seek out presidential candidates — they just started showing up.
“It’s good of them to show up to show their support for making things right in the state. We did not do that. We deliberately did not try to turn it into a political rally,” Swinton, the former Benedict president, said. “I’m not saying those people are trying to turn it into a political rally, but I think they feel they are showing up to show their support for a worthwhile cause: improving civil rights in this country.”
McLawhorn of the Urban League says King Day at the Dome, which he never predicted would become a campaign stop for political candidates, has evolved since its roots 20 years ago, but the original focus of addressing injustice still is important today.
“There was no hooray, it wasn’t about any individual person, it was about a cause,” McLawhorn said.
King Day at the Dome events
Online at thestate.com — Check for live updates from King Day at the Dome from The State’s politics team
8:30 a.m. — Prayer service at Zion Baptist Church, followed by a march to the State House
10:15 a.m. — State House program begins
