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Americans have been "blind" to pain caused by emblem of racial hatred: Obama

Xinhua, June 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that for too long, the Americans had been blind to the pain on many African-Americans caused by the flag of the pro-slavery side during the Civil War.

"For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate Flag stirred into many of our citizens," he said in a powerful eulogy at the funeral service of South Carolina state senator Clementa Pinckney, one of the nine African-American churchgoers killed by white gunman Dylann Roof last week.

Roof, 21, started a shooting spree on June 17 at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina after spending nearly an hour of Bible study with all the victims.

According to the U.S. TV network CNN, a law enforcement official quoted witnesses as saying that Roof said he was at the church "to shoot black people".

The incident immediately became racially charged as a racist manifesto purportedly written by Roof and photos depicting him holding the Confederate flag surfaced on-line.

"It's true a flag did not cause these murders," said Obama during the eulogy for Pickney. "But as people from all life now acknowledge.. the flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation."

Though removed from the state Capitol dome in 2000, the Confederate battle flag has been flying over a monument for Confederate soldiers on the statehouse grounds.

After the black church massacre last week, the state capitol's American flag was lowered to half-staff. However, the Confederate flag on the statehouse grounds remained at full-staff.

"The Confederate flag should be removed, especially from the governmental (compound)," said Sharon Iswalt, white woman from northern part of the country. "Because that's a place for all people, and the government should be for all people." Endite