Tide Turning? GOP Pols Unite Against Confederate Flag

A decades-long battle over official displays of the Confederate battle flag may have reached a tipping point with the massacre of nine African-Americans last week at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and the state's two U.S. senators, Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott — all Republicans — called for the flag to be removed from its memorial location at the state Capitol on Monday.“The fact that it causes pain to so many is reason enough to remove it from the capitol grounds,” Haley said, calling the flag "a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally oppressive past.” In Mississippi, meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Phillip Gunn called for the removal of the Confederate symbol from the state flag. Though several states' flags incorporate Confederate symbolism, only Mississippi's incorporates the Confederate battle standard. "As a Christian, I believe our state's flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed," Gunn said.

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