Partial List of Supportive Organizations

February 1962: A Confederate flag similar to the familiar battle flag, but rectangular rather than square, is placed on the Statehouse dome after lawmakers vote to fly it during the four-year Civil War centennial. Almost 40 years later, 51 surviving lawmakers would say they never intended the flag to stay on the dome and inadvertently omitted a date to take it down.

July 1993: Attorney General Travis Medlock says there is no legal reason the flag must fly.

May 20, 1994: NAACP Chairman William Gibson threatens economic sanctions against South Carolina because of the flag flying over its seat of government.

May 27, 1994: Lawmakers draft a compromise to lower the flag and put two other Confederate flags beside monuments on Statehouse grounds.

June 1994: The state Senate approves the compromise bill, but the House twice refuses to consider it. The Legislature adjourns without acting. Columbia Mayor Bob Coble and 23 civic and business leaders seek a permanent injunction to keep the flag from flying on the dome.

July 1994: Flag opponents march by the hundreds in Myrtle Beach, still promising economic sanctions if the ``red rag'' is not down by Labor Day. Their route is lined with hundreds of flag-waving demonstrators, some wearing Ku Klux Klan T-shirts and claiming to be members of the KKK. Racial epithets are hurled.

Aug. 9, 1994: Republicans include a flag referendum on their primary ballot; 76 percent of the voters oppose taking down the banner.

September 1994: Flag opponents, marching on Hilton Head Island, say they will wait for the Supreme Court to act on the Coble lawsuit before calling for an economic boycott.

Nov. 15, 1994: The Supreme Court sets arguments in the Coble case.

May 1995: Legislators pass a law protecting the flag during Statehouse renovations. They also pass a law giving the Legislature sole authority to remove it.

July 1995: The state Supreme Court dismisses the Coble lawsuit.

Nov. 27, 1996: In a televised address, Republican Gov. David Beasley proposes moving the flag to a monument on the Statehouse grounds.

Jan. 21, 1997: 500 clergymen march in support of Mr. Beasley's proposal.

Jan. 23, 1997: The House rejects the Beasley plan and votes to hold a special referendum in which citizens decide whether the flag stays or goes. The Senate lets the referendum bill die in committee.

March 8, 1998: Mr. Beasley acknowledges the flag compromise has failed and promises to let it drop.

September 1998: Mr. Beasley repeats his pledge never again to try to move the flag. His Democratic opponent Jim Hodges promises he won't revive the flag issue.

Oct. 10, 1998: The NAACP stages an anti-flag demonstration at the Statehouse.

Nov. 3, 1998: Mr. Beasley loses the governor's race after video poker and flag proponents rally against him. Mr. Hodges is elected.

July 15, 1999: The NAACP calls for tourists to boycott South Carolina beginning Jan. 1 if the flag remains.

July 26, 1999: Mr. Hodges meets with NAACP leaders. His staff starts polling lawmakers on the flag issue.

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Key dates in South Carolina's Confederate flag controversy:

Read the Original call to Action

Oct. 16, 1999: The NAACP officially ratifies the boycott and asks the U.S. Justice Department to order removal of Confederate flags from all public property in South Carolina, not just the Statehouse.

January 2000: The boycott officially begins although dozens of conventions and sports events already have moved to other states. Mr. Hodges begins private meetings with key figures on both sides of the flag debate to see if a compromise can be achieved. The legislative session begins with a dozen or more proposals for moving the Confederate flag, most of them opposed by the NAACP, which says it belongs in a museum.

Jan. 8, 2000: Nearly 7,000 gather for a celebration of Southern heritage that includes support for the Confederate flag on the dome.

Jan. 17, 2000: The NAACP brings 70,000 anti-flag demonstrators to Columbia on the birthday of slain civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., insisting the flag come down. In honor of the boycott, churches offer food and lodging to visitors.

April 6, 2000: Charleston Mayor Joe Riley ends a five-day walk from the coast to the Capitol with a take-it-down rally on the south side of the Statehouse. Two thousand attend. On the south side, more than 300 flag supporters stage their own rally.

April 12-13, 2000: On the historic dates that the Civil War began at FortSumter and ended four years later at Appomattox,Va., the Senate votes to take down the Confederate flag on the dome and put a more authentic battle flag near a Southern soldiers' monument on the Statehouse grounds on July 1. Confederate flags also are to be removed from the House and Senate chambers. Brokered by Clearwater Democrat Tommy Moore, the bill, which includes protection for all historical memorials, gets final passage the next day.

May 10, 2000: On Confederate Memorial Day, after two days of acrimonious debate with racial overtones, the House concurs, making changes in detail that the Senate must accept. It does.

May 11, 2000: The NAACP says the solution is not acceptable because the flag would be placed in another position of sovereignty and would be even more visible to passers-by than before. The boycott continues.

July 1, 2000: The flag is scheduled to be lowered from the Statehouse. NAACP marshals over 3000 demonstrators in Silent March to protest the raising of the Confederate Flag on a thirty-foot pole on the State House grounds.  Flag supporters line portions of Main Street shouting racial epithets at the marchers

October 2007: Society of Philosophers cancel conference in support of economic sanctions.

January 2001 -2007: Thousands march each year to continue pressure on legislators to retire the Confederate battle flag. King Day at the Dome expands to show the effects of the Confederate mindset of many legislators who continue to pass laws detrimental to the educational, political and economic of people of color and the poor in the state.

January 2008: Over 7500 marchers gather at the State House to call for unity and retirement of the Confederate battle flag.Black Coaches and Administrators Executive Director joins the march along with Senators Barak Obama and Hillery Clinton, and former Senator John Edwards.

May 2008: The National Pan Hellenic Council cancels October Conference in favor of Charlotte, NC to support the NAACP.

 

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