[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TAKE DOWN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, last night in the South Carolina 
Legislature, we saw Democrats and Republicans join together to take 
down the Confederate battle flag, many with tears in their eyes and 
still grieving the nine lives lost in Charleston.
  While the people of South Carolina move one step past this terrible 
tragedy, many House Republicans want to take our Nation 150 years back.
  We were scheduled to vote on the Interior Appropriations bill today. 
The bill was pulled because Members on the other side of the aisle 
objected to banning the display and sale of the Confederate flags at 
national park facilities.
  For years, I have heard all the arguments from those who defend the 
display of the Confederate battle flag, but it is moral cowardice to 
ignore this flag's history of White supremacy and treason, to pretend 
it symbolizes anything other than a heritage of hate and human 
oppression.
  The Confederate battle flag does not belong atop our State capitols, 
and it certainly should not be sold or displayed at our national parks. 
It belongs in a museum of shame, alongside the other relics of hate and 
division that tore our country apart.

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