Removing Confederate Flag Helps US Heal Racial Wounds - Senator

Taking down the Confederate flag will help the United States to overcome its racial divisions, South Carolina State Senator Joel Lourie told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Monday, South Carolina senators, including Lourie, voted 37-3, to remove the Confederate flag from a memorial in front of the State House in the state’s capital Columbia.

“To remove the [Confederate] flag would help heal our state and move us forward in an historical and unprecedented way.”

The flag, also known as Stars and Bars, represents the Confederate States of America, an unrecognized confederation of slave-owning states in the south of the United States. The confederation was formed in 1861 in opposition to Abraham Lincoln’s presidential platform that stood against slavery in the United States.

Controversy surrounding the Confederate flag unfolded following June 17, 2015 racially-charged attack, when a young white man, Dylann Storm Roof, shot dead nine African-Americans in a Charleston black church.

Several photographs depicting Roof alongside Confederate flags have been posted on a website allegedly connected with him.

Lourie explained that following the Charleston massacre, the flag was widely seen as a symbol of hate, racism and bigotry.

On June 22, 2015, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for the flag’s removal from the grounds of the state capitol building.