Down with the Southern Cross: Opinions on the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina

Abstract

A HORRIFIC MASS SHOOTING IN A BLACK CHURCH in Charleston, South Carolina, became the mobilizing force for taking down the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds in Columbia. In this article, we chronicle disputes over the Confederate flag in the American South and then turn our attention to the case of South Carolina. Using survey data from the Winthrop Poll (WP), we evaluate the opinions of South Carolinians toward the Confederate flag before and after the Charleston shooting. Before this senseless massacre, our findings show, there was a palpable racial divide in opinions toward the Rebel flag and sharp divisions among whites on the basis of certain demographics and sociopolitical attitudes. After the shooting, our analysis indicates, the Charleston tragedy galvanized opinion, black and white, in favor of taking down the Confederate flag. On the evening of 17 June 2015, 21-year-old Dylann Roof of Eastover, South Carolina, went to the “Holy City” of Charleston to commit an unspeakable tragedy. Around 9:00 p.m., Roof murdered nine black parishioners at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, about an hour after he was welcomed to participate in a Bible study.1 This horrific hate crime was quickly connected to a divisive political issue in South Carolina and other southern states: the Confederate battle flag.2