Above: Bree Newsome climbing flagpole to remove Confederate flag
#FreeBree Trending After Protester Arrested For Removing SC Confederate Flag
Update 2:20 p.m. #FreeBree is now trending on Black Twitter and a bail fund has been set up to help Bree Newsome defray the legal costs associated with her arrest for removing the Confederate flag.
A woman identified as Bree Newsome was arrested Saturday after climbing the flagpole at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C., about 6:30 a.m. and removing the Confederate flag, Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange.org, said in a statement.
But state officials ordered the banner to be raised again by 8:30 a.m., Robinson tells The Root.
Robinson, whose group last week started a petition titled “Take Down The Confederate Flag From The South Carolina Capitol,” which has received more than 55,000 signatures, supported the activist. He identified her as a North Carolina educator. A second person was arrested, but his or her identity is not yet known.
“The confederate flag was born out of a government defending the enslavement of Black people and resurrected as an emblem for whites violently opposing racial integration,” Robinson said in the statement. “Any government that recognizes the flag is declaring that it cherishes a history of racial terror. This flag sends a horrible message about what our country was and a reminder of what we can still be. The flag is down now, we should keep it down, and any charges against these activists should be dropped immediately.”
BREAKING: The confederate flag no longer flies over South Carolina. #KeepItDown #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/HkQabxxPLq
— The Sparrow Project (@sparrowmedia) June 27, 2015
Capitol Police in SC arresting Bree after she scaled the pole and pulled down the #ConfederateFlag #keepitdown pic.twitter.com/MOhYvdknsb
— Rashad Robinson (@rashadrobinson) June 27, 2015
The incident comes a day after President Barack Obama delivered a moving eulogy at the funeral of state Sen. the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down with eight others last week by a gunman during Bible study at Emanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C.
The movement #Takeitdown sprang up after the discovery of an online manifesto on a Web site registered to the alleged gunman, Dylann Roof, venerating the flag, which is rooted in the Confederate states’ Civil War campaign to preserve slavery. The movement has since morphed into #keepitdown.
