A protester has scaled a flagpole on the grounds of the South Carolina legislature at dawn and removed the Confederate flag.
The black woman climber was arrested on Saturday (local time) as soon as she came down the nine metre pole, and a new flag was restored to the original position within an hour.
Pictures on social media showed a woman, named as Bree Newsome, 30, being escorted by an officer, her hands behind her back. #FreeBree was trending on Twitter within hours.
Also arrested was a 30-year-old white man named as James Ian Tyson. Both are from neighbouring North Carolina and have been charged with defacing a monument.
Within hours of the incident, an online crowdfunding site had raised more than US$80,000 to pay for Newsome's bail and to help other activists "taking direct action in the movement for Black lives".
There has been a growing clamour for the flag - branded "a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation" by President Barack Obama on Friday - to be removed from the grounds of the state house in Columbia.
Once flown by the rebel army of the slave-owning South, the confederate flag is seen by some as a symbol of regional heritage. But many more view it as an ugly reminder of racism's cruel legacy.
Impassioned debate about the flag was sparked by the mass shooting of nine black worshippers last week in Charleston, also in South Carolina.
The white alleged supremacist gunman, Dylann Roof, 21, later appeared in disturbing photos online with the flag.
Newsome, an activist whose full name is Brittany Ann Byuarim Newsome, said in a statement: "We removed the flag today because we can't wait any longer.
"We can't continue like this another day. It's time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality," added the statement, carried in the local The Post and Courier newspaper.
Her protest came ahead of a small demonstration by pro-Confederate flag supporters who chanted and waved the banner at the state house.
AFP
source: newshub archive
