A rally to protest the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse was turned into a farce by a single protester armed with just a sousaphone.

The march, organised by the Ku Klux Klan earlier this month, was taking place near the capital building in the city of Columbia when local resident Matt Buck spotted them.

Mr Buck took out his sousaphone - an instrument very similar to a marching tuba - and began playing a comical, lumbering tune to make them sound as stupid as possible.

"I didn't really know how to show my opposition, so that was my way of doing it," Mr Buck told the Charleston City Paper .

"My goal was to embarrass them, and I think I did a little bit."

He said he initially started out with the tune that Stewie playes on Family Guy when he follows obese people around with a tuba.

He then followed it up with Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", which is used in the Nazi car chase in the film The Blues Brother.

While the Ku Klux Klan had announced the rally, it is understood that other groups also attended the rally including the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement Party.

The alleged shooter, Dylann Storm Roof, had posed with a Confederate flag before the massacre.