Jenny Horne: Republican who helped banish Confederate flag

[frigidmagi]

bbc

On Wednesday, South Carolina's House of Representatives spent 13 hours debating whether or not to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state's capitol in Columbia.

Some Republicans had attempted to delay a final vote by introducing amendments to the bill, which was introduced after nine black churchgoers were killed in Charleston by a gunman who had posed with the flag.

That opposition provoked fierce argument on both sides of the house and culminated in an emotional speech by one of the Republicans backing the motion.

Despite Jenny Horne's ancestry - she happens to be a descendant of Jefferson Davis, the man who led the Confederacy during the Civil War - she was furious that her colleagues couldn't come to an agreement.

With no notes, she began by saying: "The people of Charleston deserve immediate and swift removal of that flag from these grounds."

Then, struggling to hold back tears, she raised her voice: "I can not believe that we do not have the heart in this body to do something meaningful such as take a symbol of hate off these grounds on Friday."