The fight to remove the flag was a focus of a January 21 rally at the statehouse here to celebrate King Day. A crowd of 1,500 marched through the rain, chanted, and sang to demand the removal of the flag and to reinvigorate the fight for equality.

A busload of 35, mostly young people from the Charlotte, North Carolina, NAACP youth chapter, came to be part of the protest. Carrying signs reading, "S.C. Suffers from the 'confederacy of the mind'" and "It's not about heritage," youth were eager to talk about why they thought it was important to be at this rally. Racist backers of the state's decision to continue flying the Confederate battle flag on Capitol grounds claim the flag represents the heritage of people in the state.

Samantha Smith said she came to "experience the march and what Dr. King believed and to stand up for what I believe." Keith Winfield added that he joined the action to "preserve our heritage and dignity; to bring that rag down, like we brought the Confederacy down."

Keynote speaker Rev. Julius Caesar Hope, the NAACP national religious affairs director, described the drive for school vouchers as the newest form of segregation. "Vouchers don't educate, they segregate. They will destroy public education."

The marchers cheered Hope's denunciation of overpopulated prisons and the high rate of incarceration of Black men. He pointed to increasing poverty and the AIDS epidemic as continued ravages of racism.

In a press conference January 12 Nelson Rivers II, NAACP national field director, explained that protests at the border of the state are "our way of standing at the Georgia and North Carolina borders [and asking] that you not stop, not stay in hotels, and don't buy gas."

South Carolina has been the target of economic sanctions against tourism since 1999. Following a rally on King Day two years ago of more than 50,000 here, the state legislature moved the Confederate battle flag from atop the statehouse dome and "placed it in the in the faces of the people," said James Gallman, head of the NAACP in South Carolina. The flag is a symbol that "reeks of hate and prejudice and symbolizes domestic terrorism." The so-called compromise move of the flag was implemented against the opposition of the NAACP.

In a January 28 press conference, South Carolina attorney general Charles Condon threatened to sue the NAACP if it conducts these protests. "If the NAACP uses South Carolina's rest stops and welcome centers to urge visitors not to buy in South Carolina or to stage demonstrations or protests," he said, "I will take legal action."

Connie Allen is a member of UNITE Local 1501 in Kannapolis North Carolina.  
 
 
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