COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Senate voted Monday to remove the Confederate flag from a pole on the Statehouse grounds, though the proposal still needs approval from the state House and the governor.
The bill requires a two-thirds vote in each chamber; the Senate approved it 37-3. Gov. Nikki Haley has said she wants the flag to come down and will sign the bill.
Monday’s vote comes less than a week after the 15th anniversary of South Carolina taking the flag off the Capitol dome where it flew since the early 1960s and moving it to beside a monument honoring Confederate soldiers.
We now have the opportunity, the obligation to put the exclamation point on an extraordinary narrative of good and evil, of love and mercy that will take its place in the history books,” said Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort.
Lawmakers had largely ignored the flag until the killing of nine black people during a Bible study at a historic African-American church on June 17.
