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The South Carolina Secessionist Party mounted Confederate flags on top of five buildings in Charleston on Sunday to protest a speaking event planned for this week at the College of Charleston maybe: "to protest a speaking event planned for this week at the College...-sj FIXEDlater this week, The Post and Courier reported.
The speaker, Bree Newsome, was arrested in summer 2015 for climbing the flagpole outside the South Caroline Statehouse and removing the Confederate flag. Newsome was reacting to a mass shooting that occurred just 10 days earlier at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. The shooting, which was racially motivated, left nine people dead.
A few weeks after her arrest, the South Carolina Legislature voted to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse permanently.
Newsome is scheduled to speak to the college Wednesday at an event called “Tearing Hatred from the Sky.” The event description says that, by scaling the 30-foot flagpole, Newsome was trying to “create a new image, a new symbol and a new consciousness of the power inherent in direct action!”
The chairman of the S.C. Secessionist Party requested last week that the College of Charleston cancel Newsome’s visit, for fear that others would be inspired to remove Confederate flags in the area.
When her visit was not canceled, the Secessionist Party decided to gather in Marion Square, just outside campus, and fly Confederate flags from the top of nearby buildings, including a parking garage.
Counter protesters showed up at the parking garage and across Marion Square with signs supporting Black Lives Matter and LGBT rights.
Sunday afternoon, Newsome tweeted about the protests and counter protests, wishing her supporters “love & light” and telling the Secessionist Party that “a parking garage is a poor substitute for the dome of the Capitol, isn’t it?”
Newsome is still scheduled to speak to the college Wednesday evening.
