After nine Black worshippers at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston were murdered by a white supremacist gunman who had previously been photographed with Confederate iconography in 2015, South Carolina swiftly removed the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds. When then-Gov. Nikki Haley explained the decision, she acknowledged that the flag should never have been raised there and described her realization that “people were driving by and felt hurt and pain.”
Today, South Carolina is taking another step in the right direction by recognizing the hurt and pain that the Confederate Memorial State Holiday causes. In a remarkable unanimous vote by the South Carolina Senate, 29 Republicans and 16 Democrats elected to create a floating holiday that would allow state workers to choose when to take time off.
It is noteworthy that the bill’s original intent was…
