S.C. House speaker: No other monuments up for debate after Confederate flag's removal

[struggle4progress]

Cassie Cope/The State
11:02 AM, Jul 17, 2015

COLUMBIA - The S.C. House will not consider changing or removing other public monuments in the wake of the General Assembly’s removal of the Confederate flag from the State House grounds last week, Speaker Jay Lucas said Thursday.

“The South Carolina House of Representatives will not engage in or debate the specifics of public monuments, memorials, state buildings, road names or any other historical markers,” Lucas, R-Darlington, said in a statement.

Republican Gov. Nikki Haley urged lawmakers to remove the flag from the State House grounds after a racially motivated church shooting that killed nine in June. The House and Senate passed a bill last week to furl the flag, which was lowered Friday.

Lucas said lawmakers — House members, in particular — made it abundantly clear during the flag debate that the only issue they were willing to discuss was the battle flag’s placement at the State House ...

http://www.independentmail.com/news/state/sc-house-speaker-no-other-monuments-up-for-debate-after-confederate-flags-removal

[struggle4progress]

1. S.C. House speaker blocks renaming Winthrop’s Tillman Hall

BY BRISTOW MARCHANT
JULY 17, 2015

... Lawmakers’ vote on the flag opened the possibility that other changes could be possible – including renaming Tillman Hall, Winthrop University’s most iconic building, which is named for an avowed racist ...

House Speaker Jay Lucas, the Hartsville Republican whose district includes southeastern Lancaster County, issued a statement Thursday saying the vote to move the flag is as far as he is willing to go.

The S.C. House “will not engage in or debate the specifics of public monuments, memorials, state buildings, road names or any other historical markers,” Lucas said. “The General Assembly, the House in particular, made it abundantly clear during the debate (on) the Confederate flag that the only issue they were willing to discuss was the placement of the battle flag on the north lawn of the Statehouse.”

The speaker’s statement leaves Winthrop in the same position the university was in last year, when two former students formally asked the Board of Trustees to consider changing the name of Tillman Hall. At the time, trustees pointed out that the 2000 Heritage Act prevented them from taking any action without the approval of a two-thirds majority of the Legislature ...

http://www.heraldonline.com/news/local/article27490099.html

[yeoman6987]

2. I am surprised a school can't change a building name

Themselves.

[struggle4progress]

3. "South Carolina: too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum"

as James Petigru famously noted in 1860