Civic leaders called Monday for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the front of South Carolina`s statehouse, denouncing it as a "symbol of hate" following last week`s horrific church massacre.
South Carolina`s Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, said she would hold a press conference later in the day to address the issue of the flag.
Religious leaders, local officials and community activists joined forces to press for the removal of the Civil War-era flag of the pro-slavery South, after last weekend`s massacre of nine African Americans at a historic Charleston church.
The church members were slain Wednesday during an evening Bible study group, allegedly by an avowed white supremacist.
Marlon Kimpson, a South Carolina state senator, said he was prepared to bring legislation to remove the flag as early as Tuesday and urged citizens to put pressure on their elected representatives.
"What we have to do is galvanize and use this window of opportunity in light of this horrible tragedy and come away with a solution and an agenda to rid this state of hate, division, and racism," he said at a news conference.
"I think that ridding the flag from the front of the statehouse is a start."
Joseph Riley, Charleston`s mayor, said the flag was a relic of the past and as such, and belongs in a museum.
"The time has come for the Confederate battle flag to move from a public position in front of the state capital to a place of history -- the state museum, the Confederate museum," he said.
"It`s a historical flag, a piece of history and it belongs in the history museum," Riley said.
He added that the flag more often than not has been used not by those seeking to sow hatred, hurt and mistrust.
"The Confederate battle flag years and years ago was appropriated as a symbol of hate," Riley said, used by the Ku Klux Klan and others opposed to "equality among the races."
Removing the flag from the State House grounds by law requires a decision by the Republican-dominated legislature, now in summer recess.
Its presence alongside a memorial to Confederate war dead on the State House lawn has been a point of friction in South Carolina for years.
It became a flashpoint once again after the massacre at Charleston`s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, allegedly by 21-year old Dylann Roof.
An online website apparently created by Roof has since been uncovered with a manifesto embracing white supremacy and showing him in photographs holding a Confederate flag and a handgun.
Over the weekend, several thousand protesters gathered at the legislative building in the capital city of Columbia, demanding the battle flag be taken down.
Organizers called the event a "warm-up" for what they hope will be an even bigger anti-flag protest at the State House on July Fourth Independence Day holiday.
Online, more than half a million people as of early Monday had put their name to a petition launched by the left-leaning MoveOn.org activist group, calling for the flag to go.
