A Confederate flag flew at the South Carolina State House for decades before being removed nearly ten years ago. One legislator wants the state to stop producing one item with the image still present.
Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, introduced legislation in the House that would prohibit the production of South Carolina license plate tags with the Confederate flag on them.
The plates are only available to South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans members at the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. The license plate features the group’s name at the top and a photo of a Confederate flag on the left side, with the organization’s name and the year, 1896, surrounding it.
A portion of the fees collected goes to the South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans. According to the South Carolina DMV website, there is a $30 fee that is added to the regular motor vehicle registration fee every two years. This is one of 97 specialty plates available on the website that benefit organizations.
Other plates include American Red Cross, Boy Scouts of America, Marine Corps League, and South Carolina Troopers Association. Some organizations, such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans, require membership.
If the bill passes, those who already have a Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate will not be required to remove them; they will, however, be unable to obtain new ones once the state stops producing them.
The tags will eventually expire, and those who already have one will have to get another without the Confederate flag, Rutherford said.
“It’s not an immediate thing I’m not going to declare them contraband,” Rutherford told reporters. “Just simply put, we just don’t need to be in that business anymore, producing things that we know have been like an anchor around the people of South Carolina for decades.”
If people want to buy Confederate flags, bumper stickers, or window stickers, that is fine, according to Rutherford. However, the state should not be involved in the creation of Confederate flag images, he added.
Rutherford said the idea came to him after he saw one of the license plates with a Confederate flag on it.
“I saw one of the license tags and when I remembered what South Carolina used to be like and how much progress we have made since then,” Rutherford recalls. “We don’t need things that take us back to that era.”
Rutherford attempted to pass similar legislation in previous years, including in 2021, but it did not advance beyond the subcommittee stage.
Rutherford believes the license plates are the only state-produced entity with a Confederate flag on them. He also stated that it is not an attack on “any one group,” but rather an effort to ensure that the state does not produce it.
The South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans is a group dedicated to preserving the history of Confederate soldiers, specifically the years 1861-1865.
They call themselves the “oldest hereditary organization for male descendants of Confederate soldiers,” and a “historical, patriotic, and non-political organization.” Attempts to contact the South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans via phone and email were unsuccessful in time for publication.
The Confederate flag flew on top of the South Carolina State House until 2000, when it was removed from the dome, but the South Carolina Infantry Battle Flag was raised to a 30-foot flagpole at the Confederate soldier monument in front of the State House.
Dylan Roof murdered nine people on June 17, 2015, during a bible study at Charleston’s Mother Emmanuel AME Church.
The flag was taken down while Nikki Haley was governor, who had supported flying the flag prior to the shooting but changed her mind afterward, even urging lawmakers to pass a bill to remove it as soon as possible. It was removed from the statehouse grounds on July 10, 2015.
When asked about the likelihood of the bill passing and whether he expected strong opposition, Rutherford replied, “It ain’t gonna be easy.”
