Good on Wesley Clark for speaking out against the Confederate flag.

“I don’t believe we ought to be standing on keeping that flag out there on state grounds like that. The flag that ought to be flying around this country is the American flag.”

The flag flew atop the Capitol dome until 2000 when it was removed and placed at a Civil War monument--still on the State House grounds. When I lived in South Carolina, it still adorned the Capitol and I wanted to rip it down myself.

The State raised the flag there in 1962, and some believe the all-white legislature did so at the time in direct defiance of the Supreme Court and the Civil Rights movement. Whether that's true or not, the flag has come to reflect a culture of hate for many black people. And that's reason enough for it to go.

Besides, the Confederate States of America surrendered to the Union in 1865. Almost 140 years ago.

MLK Day

And since it's MLK Day on Monday: Even now, in 2004 Greenville is the only county in South Carolina that doesn't observe Martin Luther King Day. County employees cannot take the day off with pay. Given the opportunity to vote on the matter last May county workers rejected the move.

South Carolina only began celebrating the holiday as a state in 2001.