WASHINGTON -- Though seen by many Americans as a symbol of racial hatred, the Confederate battle flag has been flying high over grounds of the South Carolina State House for years.
As heritage in the eyes of supporters, but as a symbol of the pro-slavery side in America's Civil War in the eyes of opponents, the debate over the Confederate flag resurfaced after the killing of nine African-American churchgoers by a white young man on Wednesday night.
A racist manifesto purportedly written by Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old killer, and a batch of photos depicting him embracing the Confederate flag have stired up much emotions.
Employing defamatory words, the manifesto details a racist ideology of white supremacy on topics such as segregation and slavery, and once even calls African-Americans "subconsciously viewed" by the whites as "lower beings."
"Segregation was not a bad thing ... Segregation did not exist to hold back negroes," reads the manifesto. "It existed to protect us from them ... it protected us from being brought down to their level."
In one of the photos posted together with the manifesto on a racist website, Roof was holding a Confederate flag in a visit to the graves of Confederate soldiers.
In fact, controversies surrounding the Confederate flag began even before the emergence of the racist manifesto possibly linked to Roof.
After Wednesday's massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the South Carolina state Capitol's stars and stripes was lowered to half-staff. However, the Confederate flag on the grounds adjacent to the state house remained full-staff.
"We cannot have the Confederate flag waving on the grounds of the state Capitol," said Cornell Brooks, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "That symbol has to come down. That symbol must be removed from our state Capitol."
After days of heated debates on the issue, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said Monday that the Confederate flag near the state Capitol should be removed.
"It's time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds," Haley told a press conference, with the presence of the state's two U.S. senators.
The remarks marked a major shift in position from what Haley and other state Republican officials had held before.
Last year, during her campaign for re-election as governor, when asked about the removal of the Confederate flag, Haley said that was a sensitive issue.
In 2000, a bill passed by the state legislature said the flag could only be removed with a two-thirds vote from members of the State General Assembly.
Meanwhile, public opinion on the Confederate flag is split along racial lines. According to a poll conducted in the state in November 2014, while 73 percent of the whites said the flag should continue flying, 61 percent of the blacks said it should come down.
Though not mentioning the Confederate flag, President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on Monday that racism was still embedded in the United States.
"The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow (racial segregation laws), discrimination in almost every institution of our lives ... and that's still part of our DNA that's passed on," Obama said in an interview with comedian Marc Maron for his popular podcast "WTF."
"We're not cured of it," added Obama. "Societies don't overnight completely erase everything that happened two to three hundred years prior."
