Cheers As South Carolina Removes Rebel Flag

President Barack Obama tweets that consigning the flag to a museum is "a meaningful step towards a better future".

20:43, UK, Friday 10 July 2015

Video: Confederate Flag Is Removed

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By Sky News US Team

South Carolina has lowered the Confederate flag at its statehouse grounds where it flew for more than half a century.

A state police honour guard brought the banner down the 30ft (10 metre) pole, amid loud cheers and chants of "USA! USA!"
The flagpole itself was dismantled later in the day.
It was removed less than a month after a gunman, who had flaunted the banner, killed nine black worshippers at a historic Charleston church.

There were celebrations as the flag came down

Relatives of the massacre victims attended the ceremony.
The FBI admitted on Friday that clerical errors helped the white suspect pass a background check to buy the weapon he allegedly used in the attack.

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The flag was taken away in an armoured vehicle to be put on display about a mile away at the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.
President Barack Obama tweeted that it was "a signal of good will and healing, and a meaningful step towards a better future".
South Carolina's Republican-dominated legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill early on Thursday to remove the flag.
The banner has been flying alongside a Confederate war memorial outside the state house since 2000.

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Before that it had flown since 1961 atop the domed roof of the legislature in the southern state where the Civil War erupted in 1861.
On its final night on the pole, the flag was surrounded by a barricade and guarded by nearly two dozen state troopers.
Authorities also banned the carrying of firearms in the vicinity of the statehouse.

Among the overnight protesters was a white man in the uniform of a Confederate infantry soldier.

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"I'm disheartened that this flag has been stolen and used for hatred and something divisive, which it is not," he said.
But Cornell Brooks, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights group, said the banner was "an odious emblem of a bygone era".
The standard, which was flown by pro-slavery forces during the US Civil War, has long been racially charged.
It was also embraced by opponents of the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

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Though some claim it as a symbol of Southern pride and heritage, it became a nationwide lightning conductor for outrage following the church shooting.
Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill on Thursday finalising the law to remove the flag.
"We will bring it down with dignity and make sure that it is put in its rightful place," she said at the signing ceremony in the state capital Columbia, flanked by relatives of the church massacre.
The dead at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church included a pastor Clementa Pinckney, who was also a Democratic state senator.
                                                                    Sky News