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Courthouse News Service reports
A woman climbed a flagpole and cut down the Confederate flag in front of the South Carolina statehouse Saturday before promptly being arrested and seeing the banner raised again less than an hour later.
Bree Newsome, dressed in climbing gear, spoke respectfully with police gathered at the base of the flag pole as she continued to move ever closer to the flag. A video of her climb captures Newsome, a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina, talking to police from about two-thirds the way up the 30-foot pole, evidently acknowledging her imminent arrest.
"I know sir. I'm prepared", she says.
"Ma'am, come down off the pole", the officers yell as passing motorists honked their horns at the scene.
"You cannot get to me with hatred and oppression and violence", Newsome shouted as she cut the flag down. "In the name of God, this flag comes down today."
The New York Daily News identifies the woman as Brittany Ann Byuarium (Bree) Newsome of Charlotte, NC and continues
[...] When she reached the bottom, State Police took the flag out of her hands and arrested her. Another North Carolina activist, James Tyson, climbed over the four-foot wrought-iron fence and held the pole to make sure Newsome didn't fall, Lewis said. He was arrested alongside Newsome as a group of onlookers cheered off camera. The 30-year-olds were charged with defacing a monument on state Capitol grounds, a misdemeanor that can bring up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
A judge ordered $3,000 bond for each of them and said they were free to travel to other states.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday June 29 2015, @04:26AM
These people are all jumping on a bandwagon.
So what?
Bandwagons is just a pejorative way of saying every body is finally coming to their senses. You term it "progressive" when it involves your pet gender issue or environmental issue. You call it a bandwagon when something you don't like prevails.
The confederacy was an immoral construct, a struggle to preserve the "right" to own another person. No part of that can be honorable, serving in the Confederate army isn't something you can look back at you family history with pride.
A modern day "son of the confederacy" should be asking himself "how wrong headed could great grand dad have been
to leave his family and fight to the death for the right to own people like cattle". The sooner we get past the point of believing any part of that was honorable, the better.
The union should have outlawed the flag at the end of the war.
I say good for her. Let her demand a jury trial. The governor has already said the flag should come down. She walks, or the judge watches his courthouse burn to the ground. Its PRECISELY for cases like this that we still have Jury trials.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @04:55AM
The reverence of symbols of the Confederacy is quite illogical.
There is a town in Brazil where descendants of slaves of former Confederates [thinkprogress.org] revere that flag.
It truly is a Klein flask of twisted thinking.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday June 29 2015, @01:06PM
I disagree with the banning the flag thing. It works for Germany to ban the Nazi flag because freedom of speech isn't a sacrosanct ideal there. Here it is, and sustaining a culture of freedom is essential to the US.
But any government that raises a symbol of war, murder, slavery, and treason on daily basis just to spite the rest of the nation isn't earning the respect of the people that a democracy ought to have. It's a petty appeal to factionalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:27PM
These were North Carolina residents bringing down a South Carolina flag.
If you weren't just being an ass, you would've made sure it was a South Carolina resident doing this so rather than it looking like another attack by the North, it would look like 'South Carolina residents finally sick of their own state's hypocrisy'. Instead it looks like 'Union dogs trying to tear down the South's history.'
(Score: 4, Informative) by SecurityGuy on Monday June 29 2015, @01:58PM
Likewise, calling NC residents "union dogs" and labeling this "another attack by the North" makes you look pretty foolish. North Carolina was part of the CSA, seceding from the Union on May 20, 1861. The capitol of the CSA was, for most of it's history, in Richmond, VA, 170 miles north of where these people came from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @06:07PM
True, but it has the word 'North' right in the name.
That's enough for some people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:38PM
> I disagree with the banning the flag thing.
Good thing the confederate flag isn't actually banned. Not flying it on government grounds and some retailers choosing not to carry it makes it no more banned than pornography is banned.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Monday June 29 2015, @06:17PM
>>> The union should have outlawed the flag at the end of the war.
>> I disagree with the banning the flag thing.
> Good thing the confederate flag isn't actually banned.
I think you missed something.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:56PM
But they could have banned its use at official buildings. After all, what is flagged at official buildings is not an expression of free speech by the people, but an official statement of the state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:59AM
So it can't be an official statement of the state that its people have the right to freedom of speech and expression?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:49PM
The US flag already makes that statement.
(Score: 1) by lars_stefan_axelsson on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:41AM
It works for Germany to ban the Nazi flag because freedom of speech isn't a sacrosanct ideal there. Here it is, and sustaining a culture of freedom is essential to the US.
That would have made more sense if the Germans banning Nazi speech wasn't forced upon them by the US after the WWII.
And I'm not even saying that was the wrong thing to do, and I'm not saying that the Nazis fought for free speech, but for the love of Deity, get off that high horse! Germany today is restricting speech because you made them do it. So it's evidently not that "sacrosanct" an ideal...
Stefan Axelsson
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday June 29 2015, @01:17PM
Distrust of power and rebelling against authority runs deep in America, for good reason. Power that could and should be employed for the benefit of all is so often abused. Consider the Dukes of Hazzard. The county officials are always scheming to get rich off the backs of the people through some illicit, unfair, and abusive employment of their powers. The heroes who stop them drive around in a car with that Confederate flag painted on the roof. I'm good with symbols of rebellion against corrupt power.
But the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism first, and rebellion second, and the TV show completely ignores the primary to focus on the rebel aspect. In that, the show is a reflection upon society, pandering to the fantasies of southern whites. There are so many other symbols they could have used, such as the first US flag with 13 stars, the "Don't Tread on Me" flag, the Jolly Roger, the Guy Fawkes mask, the flag of Republican France or Marianne, the Phrygian cap or liberty cap, the Liberty Bell, or a symbolic representation of the US Constitution or even the Magna Carta. The Confederate flag is no better than a Nazi flag. Even a Communist flag would be better.
Another telling fact of the show is that there is not an African American person to be seen anywhere. Like the racism, the existence of African Americans is completely ignored by the TV show.
Two of my great great grandfathers served in the Civil War, one on each side. Family tradition has it that my Confederate ancestor was in Lee's army, and deserted about the time Richmond fell. Wish I could ask him why he fought at all for such a despicable cause. He never owned any slaves, he wasn't rich enough. Why did he put his life on the line for rich slave owners? Did he really hope to one day gain admission to the club? They didn't think much more of his sort, the poor, than they thought of slaves. Slavery helped keep him poor by putting downward pressure on wages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 29 2015, @01:46PM
Go read up on the history of the US during that period and tell me that it was about 'rebelling' rather than the first steps in enforcing conformance.
There was a lot of injustice being enforced by the very people who had a decade earlier been promoting independence from the crown.
(Score: 1) by AntiAntagonist on Monday June 29 2015, @06:30PM
Citation please