Rep. Mark Sanford declined to weigh in on whether or not South Carolina should reconsider the place of the Confederate flag — either on license plates or at a memorial on the Statehouse grounds — in the wake of the massacre of nine African-Americans in a church, allegedly by a white man in a hate crime.
The former Republican governor told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” that “for some folks that represents heritage, for others of us it represents hate.”
“I think you have to be attentive to where my brothers in Christ are coming from on this debate. (I have) a long list of friends who believe passionately that it still ought to come down from that place of memorial,” he said. “But I have an equal number of friends who say, ‘Wait a minute, my great uncle died in this particular effort, for me it wasn’t about slavery, it was about states’ rights.'”
A picture has circulated of the alleged murderer, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, seen posing by a car featuring a South Carolina license plate depicting the Confederate flag. On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Texas can constitutionally reject proposals for similar license plate designs in its state without violating the First Amendment.
Blitzer asked Sanford if it was time for South Carolina to rethink its use of the charged symbol. In his response, Sanford pointed to a compromise made in recent years, in which the flag flying above the Statehouse was removed, and instead featured on a memorial on the grounds.
“It’s premature to go into an intense, exhaustive, emotionally draining debate of what we might do … before we first have time to mourn the passing of these families and the lives that have been impacted,” he said.