A South Carolina candidate for US Congress, who has been criticized for using the 2015 killings of nine black church members in a campaign advert, has said the removal of a Confederate monument in the state should be matched by the removal of a memorial to African American slaves.

Sheri Few, who is running for South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, was condemned by the pastor of the Emanuel AME church last week for a “completely distasteful” advertisement in which she criticized “weak politicians” for removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s statehouse in 2015, while wielding a semi-automatic rifle.

Few has made the flag’s removal, and the preservation of Confederate memorabilia, a central part of her campaign. On Monday she told the Guardian she stood by her controversial ad, and said if elected she would focus on “fighting the destruction of every bit of Confederate memorabilia in our country”.

Few’s comments came as New Orleans began to remove four Confederate monuments in the city. A number of statues celebrating the Confederacy have been removed across the country in recent years, and some streets named after Confederate generals have been renamed.

The South Carolina house voted to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the statehouse following the murder of nine church members in June 2015. The flag had originally flown on the dome of the statehouse, but was moved to the grounds in 2001 as part of a compromise that saw the installation of a monument to African American slaves.

“So that issue had supposedly already been settled,” Few said.

“So then there’s this huge monument to African Americans that is still on the statehouse grounds.

“And, you know, why hasn’t anyone called for the removal of that? Because that was a part of the compromise. So that doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

A monument to the Confederacy still stands in the statehouse grounds. There has been no suggestion that monument will be removed, but Few said the removal of similar structures elsewhere put it under threat. She said if it were to be removed then the African American memorial should also be ditched.

“If they insist on removing the memorial itself, then, yes, it would be appropriate to remove the other one as well,” she said.

The most recent poll in the fifth district, conducted in February, showed Few in third place, behind the state representatives Tommy Pope and Ralph Norman. Both Pope and Norman voted in favor of removing the Confederate flag in 2015, and the two representatives were the focus of Few’s ire in her controversial campaign ad.

“Weak politicians are too quick to blame a horrible tragedy on a flag, or a gun, or even free speech,” Few said in the ad.

She told the Guardian Pope and Norman’s vote represented “a kneejerk, politically correct decision in response to the horrible shooting in Charleston”.

In response, the Rev Eric Manning, the pastor of Emanuel AME, told the local television station Live 5 News that “the events of a racist committing murder is something … should never be utilized to advance someone’s political career”.

The fifth district congressional seat became available after the incumbent Mick Mulvaney was chosen as the director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration.

The Republican primary is on 2 May and the election will be held on 20 June. Closely fought special elections in Kansas and Georgia have followed other appointments to Trump’s cabinet, but recent history points to a Republican win in South Carolina. The fifth district was held by a Democrat for 128 years, until Mulvaney won the seat in 2010. He retained the seat by 20 points in 2016.