Days after an avowed white supremacist entered a historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina and murdered nine black people, every flag across the country flew at half-mast. Except for this one:
That issue has entered the presidential race as Republican candidates vying for their party’s presidential nomination are refusing to say whether the Confederate flag should be removed from the capital grounds of the Palmetto State.
Here is why: according to a 2014 Winthrop University Poll, the overwhelming majority of white South Carolinians and potential GOP primary voters support keeping the flag right where it is:
But on Saturday night, hundreds gathered in front of South Carolina’s state capital to protest the state law mandating that the most visible symbol of the Civil War fly less than 300 feet away from the capital building.
ThinkProgress spoke to several attendees and asked how they’d convince supporters of the Confederate flag to tear it down.
