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 in Charleston, S.C., a hate crime, the head of the NAACP says it's not appropriate for South Carolina to keep flying the Confederate flag at its state house.


"The flag has to come down," NAACP President Cornell Brooks told a crowd gathered for a midday news conference Friday.

"This was not merely a mass shooting, not merely a matter of gun violence," Brooks said. "This was a racial hate crime, and must be confronted as such."

A symbol of the Confederate flag was on the car that police say Dylann Roof, 21, drove to Charleston's historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church Wednesday, before opening fire on those gathered for a Bible study meeting. A photo of Roof on social media shows him wearing symbols of the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and white-ruled Rhodesia.


Roof was captured Thursday and arraigned Friday afternoon, in a court proceeding that 

Speaking in Charleston today, Brooks acknowledged that some people view the Confederate flag as part of history and regional heritage. But, he said:

"When we see that symbol lifted up as an emblem of hate, as a tool of hate, as an inspiration for hate, as an inspiration for violence — that symbol has to come down, that symbol must be removed from our state capitol."


Arguments over South Carolina's display of the Confederate flag have raged for decades. The 

 tells us about the most recent developments:


In his remarks, Brooks noted that he has spent a great deal of time in Charleston as a youth, and that he had grown up nearby. He also said that like other generations of his family, he is an African Methodist Episcopal minister.

"This tragedy hits close to home," he said.

In the wake of the killings, Brooks said, "we're all coming together, and we're saying, yes there may be multiple sides of this debate. But we all have to be on the side of those who lost their lives in a church."


Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, also says the Confederate flag 

.
A White House spokesman Eric Schultz says, "The president has said before he believes the Confederate flag belongs in a museum, and that is still his position."  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Calling Wednesday's killing of nine black church members in Charleston a hate crime, the head of the NAACP says it's not appropriate for South Carolina to keep flying the confederate flag.

Confederate flag 'has to come down' in S.C., NAACP leader says

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