State should allow flag to be moved

York County Clerk of Court David Hamilton had the right idea, we think, in choosing to remove a Confederate flag and other Civil War memorabilia from the courtroom in the county courthouse before the celebration of its grand reopening Sunday. But when questions arose about the legality of removing the flag under the South Carolina Heritage Act, Hamilton had little choice but to comply with state rules.

Ultimately, though, we think the only fair and lasting solution is to change to Heritage Act to allow local jurisdictions more control over historical monuments and memorials.

The Heritage Act was passed in 2000 as part of the compromise that moved the Confederate battle flag from the top of the Statehouse dome to its grounds. The law requires a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House before any changes to war monuments or public property named for historical figures can be made.

This prevents communities – including local governments, school districts, or colleges and universities – from altering monuments, memorials, historical plaques or names of buildings without permission from the Legislature. While the law may have been designed to protect age-old statues and other monuments from being removed or changed, the law also has sparked controversy.

For example, state lawmakers have blocked the town of Greenwood from replacing the plaques on a memorial in the town square erected in 1929 by the local American Legion Post. The plaques, which honor the dead from World War I and World War II, separate the names into lists labeled “White” and “Colored.”

Local residents and American Legion leaders want to replace the plaques with new ones that list the names together, but they have been constrained from doing so under the Heritage Act.

Some officials and students at both Winthrop and Clemson universities have questioned the propriety of having major buildings on their campuses named after Ben Tillman, a former S.C. governor and U.S. senator known as an outspoken white supremacist and as someone who bragged of lynching blacks. But the Heritage Act blocks any name changes without permission of the Legislature.

Lawmakers proved in 2015 that, even with the high threshold of a two-thirds vote, change is possible when they voted to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the Statehouse following the slaying of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church. But soon after that vote, leaders in both houses said no changes to other monuments or or memorials would be approved.

We understand that many of the old statues, plaques and place names genuinely reflect the state’s heritage and are a part of South Carolina’s historical landscape. A wholesale attempt to change every plaque or demolish every statue of a Confederate soldier would be a misguided and futile attempt to erase history.

But there is no rationale that justifies a Confederate flag – a symbol of racial injustice and hatred for many – hanging in a county courtroom. We commend Hamilton’s instincts in using the occasion of the courthouse reopening as an opportunity to move the flag to a different, more appropriate location in the courthouse.

Regardless of the Heritage Act, that was the right thing to do.

We realize that Hamilton must comply with the law. But we hope the attorney general will find legal grounds to allow the the flag to be moved.

Again, though, we think the Heritage Act should be changed to grant more authority to local communities.

The Legislature needs to defer to the judgment of residents regarding the fate of local memorials and monuments in their own backyards.

This story was originally published January 31, 2017 at 6:51 PM with the headline "State should allow flag to be moved."