“I cannot believe that we do not have the heart in this body 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. Pinckney and his two young daughters, that would be adding insult to injury — and I will not be a part of it.
“And for all of these reasons, I will not vote to amend this bill today. We may visit this another session, another year. But if we amend this bill, we are telling the people of Charleston: We don’t care about you. We do not care that someone used this symbol of hate to slay [nine] innocent people who were worshiping their God.”
— State Rep. Jenny Horne, R-Summerville, in a late Wednesday plea with colleagues to take the Confederate flag off the Statehouse dome. More.
Learn more about who we really are
“It’s time to study and learn about who we are and where we came from while finding a way forward without the baggage of our ancestors’ fears and superstitions. It’s time to quit rallying around a flag that divides. And it is time for the South to — dare I say it? — rise up and show our nation what a beautiful place our region is, and what more it could become.”
— Alabama native, writer and musician Patterson Hood of the band, Drive-By Truckers, in The New York Times Magazine, July 9.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!