Finding the right home for rebel flag

There are countless reasons to scold the state Legislature for its failure to deal with pressing state issues. But in the case of the delay in finding a permanent home for the Confederate battle flag that was removed from the Statehouse grounds last summer, foot-dragging might be a virtue.

The flag was removed from the Statehouse’s front lawn after nine people attending a Bible study class at Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME Church were gunned down by a white man who said he hoped to start a race war. In photos posted online, the accused gunman could be seen posing with the rebel flag.

The outrage over the shooting brought out the nobler instincts of the state. Lawmakers, many of them staunch supporters of flying the flag on Statehouse grounds, voted to take it down.

Gov. Nikki Haley also played a key role, offering an impassioned plea to relocate the flag.

The law passed by legislators offered only basic specifications for finding the flag a new home. The flag would residee in the Confederate Relic Room in Columbia, which has artifacts from every war South Carolinians have fought in. A separate measure instructed the museum’s director to estimate costs for the flag’s “appropriate, permanent, and public display.”

Perhaps the lack of specificity was a mistake. The museum board came back with a plan to spend $3.6 million for a display that might have been appropriate for King Tut’s tomb.

The plan included $550,000 for a display with electronic screens that scrolled the names of 22,000 South Carolina soldiers killed in the Civil War. The plan also called for $1.1 million to expand the museum, $500,000 to conserve existing flags and other artifacts, and $650,000 for new exhibit spaces.

One might suspect board members of trying to use this opportunity to build themselves a whole new museum. But whatever the motive, S.C. House leaders balked.

“We’re not funding it,” Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston, said last month.

And that is a relief. With the many other pressing priorities facing the state, spending $3.6 million to house a Confederate flag that has no real historical significance would have been a travesty.

Limehouse has suggested there might be room for the flag in an existing museum in Charleston. He thinks it might get more attention in the city where the Civil War’s first shots were fired.

George Dorn, chairman of the newly appointed governing board of the Relic Room in Columbia, thinks the flag should stay in the state’s capital. But he notes that lawmakers probably won’t get around to discussing a plan this year.

He may be hoping that a delay is better than an outright refusal to adopt the board’s plan.

We think any expensive outlay for an extravagant display of this flag would be a mistake. It has no distinction other than that it was the last flag to fly on the flagpole of the Statehouse grounds.

We salute those who voted to take down the flag after the massacre at Mother Emanuel Church, but it should never have flown on the Statehouse grounds at all after being removed from the Statehouse dome. This particular flag is not a symbol of pride but rather a reminder of how the state stubbornly continued to fly it on public property even though it deeply offended thousands of South Carolinians, blacks and whites alike.

If Dorn and other board members want to build a plush new resting place for the flag, they should solicit donations from the private sector. Tap into the nostalgia for hoop skirts, magnolia blossoms and an antebellum South that exists mostly in the imaginations of the uninformed.

But, please, don’t waste public money on this fake relic.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 10:15 PM with the headline "Finding the right home for rebel flag."