NAACP Ends 15-Year South Carolina Boycott After Confederate Flag Removal
PHILADELPHIA, July 12 (UPI) — The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ended its 15-year boycott of South Carolina on Saturday after the Confederate flag was removed from the state Capitol grounds.
The NAACP boycotted tourism and other services in protest of the Confederate flagthat was first flown in Columbia as part of a Civil War centennial commemoration in 1961, which coincided with the Civil Rights Movement.
“In 1999, as a result of the insistence of the State of South Carolina to continue to fly the Confederate flag on the grounds of the state Capitol, the NAACP called for a boycott,” the civil rights group said in a statement. “In 2000, the NAACP reiterated its condemnation of the Confederate battle flag and the Confederate battle emblem being flown over… any public site or space building.”
The NAACP National Board of Directors voted in Philadelphia, Pa., to remove the boycott during the group’s annual convention.
The Confederate flag was brought down from the Capitol grounds on Friday after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a bill following a fierce debate in the state’s Congress where both chambers voted to remove the flag.
The flag’s removal was preceded by the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston on June 17, where nine churchgoers were killed by confessed gunman Dylan Roof, 21.
Roof was seen holding the Confederate flag in pictures that surfaced after the murders. He was indicted on nine murder charges and three attempted murder charges on Tuesday for his confessed shooting massacre.
The murders reignited a nationwide discussion on racism and Confederate symbols in America.
“Removal of the Confederate flag is not going to solve most of the severe tangible challenges facing our nation… but it does symbolize an end to the reverence of and adherence to values that support racially-based chattel slavery and the hatred which has divided our country for too long,” the NAACP wrote. “Therefore be it resolved that the NAACP ends its boycott of South Carolina.”
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