How South Carolina Ended Up Voting to Take Down the Flag

On Tuesday afternoon, after the South Carolina House had adjourned until morning, three-dozen legislators piled into black SUVs and drove a mile down the road to the South Carolina State Museum to see for themselves the Confederate Relic Room — the final resting place of the Confederate flag should a bill to remove it from the State House become law, which it now almost certainly will.

 

The lawmakers were black and white, Democrats and Republicans, proponents of unconditional removal and those who would have the flag stand until Judgment Day. They had been invited by Rick Quinn, a House lifer and former Republican majority leader.

The Senate had passed a bill to remove the flag that morning, and all eyes had now turned to the House, where the outcome was uncertain. Pressure was mounting to pass a clean version of the Senate bill immediately, even as a group of flag supporters dug in to slow down or even alter its removal.

Quinn was the author of a compromise amendment that would ensure a first-rate display in the relic room if the flag is moved there, but otherwise leave the Senate bill unchanged.