On Friday morning, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds for the last time.
For most of the morning, a large crowd filled the Statehouse grounds, as well as Gervais Street, which had been cordoned off by authorities in preparation for what most saw as the most newsworthy event to occur in Columbia for years.
Around 10 a.m., two highway patrol officers in an honor guard, one white and one black, marched from the Statehouse to the flagpole upon which the rebel banner flew. To a tidal wave of cheering, and the beginnings of a "U.S.A." chant, the flag was lowered, folded and taken away.
In the minutes that followed, a general public sentiment of victory began to take hold. Some began to chant, "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye," while others simply hugged their friends and family. Being only blocks from USC's campus, a large part of the crowd was made up by Gamecocks as well.
"Since I was born in South Carolina, seeing the flag come down was great," said one current USC student, who asked not to be identified due to him representing a student organization present at the flag lowering. "Right here, you're going to have a lot of people that'll disagree with [the flag removal], but at the same time, there's nothing they could do. We're moving forward as a country, and we're going to keep getting better. Now that this is over, it's time to move on."
"The flag had been up there for what, 40 or 50 years, and it's just wonderful that it's gone now and a bad remnant of history; it's amazing," economics and business administration major Ashley Heyward said. "I don't know what should be the next step, but this is a start right here. All I can really say is that I'm just very happy that this is happening now."
Cameron Driver, an advertising major from North Augusta, thought the flag removal said a lot about the current state South Carolina finds itself in.
"I thought it would be cool to watch history in the making," Driver said. "I think it needed to come down, and it shows how progressive South Carolina has become, given that 150 years ago, we were not the most morally aligned state. I believe that most people are happy with this historical moment."
While most are in agreement that the flag was due to come down long before 2015, there are still those who are not quite sure of what the next step should be.
Others in the crowd, like former Aiken resident Michael McCullen, think that the flag removal is a patchwork technique that politicians are trying to use to avoid addressing the notion that systematic racism still exists in the United States today.
Following the flag lowering, McCullen was found debating the origins of the Confederate flag with several pro-flag supporters clad in grey Civil War-era soliders' uniforms.
"I don't believe in them lowering the flag," McCullen said. "I think it's an exercise in futility, and that it's purely cosmetic. The people who are responsible for the lowering are all now going to slap each other on the back and say 'look how magnanimous we are' without actually accomplishing anything substantive. So now they take the flag down without really examining the history of the Confederacy. Then, if or when they execute Roof, they can say 'we dealt with Dylan Roof and now everything's cool' without ever having to examine their own history."
The real point that McCullen drove at, however, was the disarming stance that many Southerners take in regards to how the flag represents their ancestors.
"It's always going to be more romantic to suggest that your ancestors were rebels fighting for this cause," he said. "Rather than saying they were manipulated into fighting for people who didn't have their best interests at heart. For a good comparison, this argument follows the same vein of logic today that allows large energy companies that are making this planet uninhabitable for the sake of profit, to continue doing what they're doing."
McCullen pointed to the group of men dressed as soldiers, who by this time had walked away after visually expressing their disagreement.
"The thing is, flag supporters are doing themselves a disservice," he said. "It's easy to say that my family were rebels and that they fought for states rights, as opposed to saying they were manipulated into fighting a war for the slave-ocracy present here at the time. When they say they didn't have anything to gain, they're right because they weren't profiting from the slave industry. The people who were profiting from it, were willing to risk the South's destruction to maintain their status quo and were ultimately the ones who manipulated and exploited the lives of normal Southerners. And they're the ones who fathered that flag and gave it its meaning."