Friday on “Democracy Now!” MSNBC host Al Sharpton said the Confederate flag is “a flag of racism and lynching and slavery, it’s a flag of treason.”
Speaking in front of Emanuel AME Church before the funeral for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Sharpton said, “Well, I think that this is a day that reminds us, despite all that we have seen, that we still have raw, violent racism in this country—terrorism.”
Commenting on the debate over the Confederate flag he said, “Taking the flag down, without changing the policies, is not enough. Yes, we want the Confederate flag down. It should have never been up.”
“We don’t want just a hug. We want to deal with voting rights, police reform. We still have not gone to trial on the Scott case in this state. There’s no hate crime bill in this state. We still must deal with Medicaid. So I think that the reality is that the climate that this young terrorist felt justified in is still among us.”
On the governor taking down the Confederate flag in Alabama, Sharpton said, “I think that it was good, but it was about 150 years too late. My mother was born and buried in Alabama. Somebody should have told them they lost the Civil War, at least that part of it. The flag is not only a flag of racism and lynching and slavery, it’s a flag of treason. These are people that challenged the government of the United States and tried to overthrow Abe Lincoln’s government.”
He said the Confederate flag is “a heritage of slavery. It’s a heritage of lynching. It’s a heritage of we are less than human. They want to be proud of that heritage? Fine. But you don’t put it up on a public square where taxpayers fund it and subsidize it.”
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