Obama gives searing speech on race in eulogy for Charleston pastor Read more

An activist in South Carolina climbed a flagpole in Columbia early on Saturday morning and removed the Confederate flag flying in front of the capitol building. The woman’s action came a day after President Barack Obama gave the eulogy for a black pastor who was murdered by an apparent white supremacist along with eight other people in a Charleston church last week.

A woman identified by a protest organizer as Bree Newsome, a 30-year-old youth organizer from Charlotte, North Carolina, climbed the flagpole before 6am and took down the controversial emblem of the antebellum, slaveholding south, with the assistance of another activist. Newsome was halfway up the 30ft pole when police demanded that she climb back down, but she continued upward and removed the flag.

Activist Mervyn Marcano told the Guardian that when Newsome returned to the ground she and James Ian Dyson were arrested by capitol police and taken to a detention center.

Sherri Iacobelli, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety, told the Associated Press Newsome and Tyson, 30, also of Charlotte, had been charged with defacing monuments on state capitol grounds, a misdemeanor that carries a fine of up to $5,000 and a prison term of up to three years, or both.

“The flag represents white supremacy,” said 25-year-old Tamika Lewis, another activist from Charlotte. “The image alone is used to ignite fear and intimidation, especially among people of color and minorities.



“Taking it down is a long time coming.”

Lewis noted that the flag was raised above the capitol in 1961, after African American students marched through the city – and after more than 180 of them were arrested. She said the fact of a rally to support the flag shows “there’s nothing being hidden” about the persistence of racism in America more than half a century later.

“This was a Confederate symbol that ignited an individual to kill and murder innocent black people in a church, and it was still erected,” she said. “The legislature was just taking too long to act morally and justly. They’re dragging their feet.”

Lewis said that the group hopes to secure Newsome’s release and to fight for minimal charges against her, and that the act of civil disobedience inspires others to “start becoming active agents in their own change”.

The activists said they took matters into their own hands because of state leaders’ lethargic response and apparent reluctance to deal with the issue.

“We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer,” Newsome said in a release sent to the Guardian. “It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”

The flag, which flies at the capitol but not on the building under state law, was raised again shortly after it was lowered, in time for a rally by supporters of the symbol scheduled for later on Saturday.

This week, Republican South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for the flag to be taken down, in an emotional speech that declared “the time has come”. But only the state legislature can mandate its removal. That body voted to debate the flag, but has not yet taken up the issue.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police surround the flagpole flying the Confederate battle flag as Bree Newsome climbs it. Photograph: Bruce Smith/AP

South Carolina governor calls for removal of Confederate flag from statehouse Read more

The campaign to remove the flag and other Confederate icons from government buildings gained extraordinary impetus in the aftermath of the racially motivated murder of nine black people at a historic church in Charleston.

Opponents of the flag argue that its meaning is inextricably linked to the evil of slavery, while its supporters argue that the flag deserves respect as a memory of hundreds of thousands of southerners who died in the civil war.

The flag, one of many Confederate battle banners, was mostly a historical artifact until the 1950s and 1960s, when the governments of many southern states took it up as a symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement and desegregation.

The group responsible for taking down the flag on Saturday morning did not identify itself under any particular banner, instead only describing itself as “led by teachers and activists” and as a “multiracial group” of “regular human beings” who “believe in the fundamental idea of humanity”.