The Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse during an elaborate nationally televised ceremony following the racially motivated Charleston church slayings in 2015. Confederate flag supporters has since compelled the banner to return to a Confederate monument and a newly renovated courtroom in Charlotte, North Carolina.
However, a South Carolina law crafted almost 15 years ago requires the Legislature to approve any change to a historical monument such as lowering the Confederate flag or adding name to a flag, by at least a two-thirds vote. In fact, one of the state's most powerful lawmakers has vowed the law will not change.
Luther Lyle, a descendent of Confederate soldiers and former caretaker of a Civil War monument insisted in lowering the flag following the Emanuel AME Church massacre in Charleston. Lyle explained he did that out of respect for the victims, according to Fox News.
His great-grandfather and the grandfather before, fought for the South in the Civil War, and he was the one who originally put the Confederate flag on the Walhalla monument in 2000. Therefore, Lyle did not take the decision to lower the flag lightly.
White supremacist Dylann Roof who killed nine black church members, displayed a Confederate flag on his car's front license plate and posted proud pictures of himself with the flag in his online manifesto. It was at that time, legislators passed the South Carolina Heritage Act, which removed the Confederate flag from the top of the Statehouse dome and put it at a soldier's monument in front of the building.
Flag supporters, however, called it a compromise, according to ABC News. People said it was still a prominent display of the state's racist past, and it led a boycott of South Carolina.
The fight over the flag goes on, with the rebel banner garnering at least two recent victories. Meanwhile, earlier this month, Lyle lowered the South Carolina flag and raised a Confederate one.
