South Carolina Governor To Call For Removal Of Confederate Flag From State House

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According to Salon.com, Gov. Nikki Haley may have had a change of heart over the weekend regarding flying the Confederate Flag near the state house's ground.

The governor has announced a 4pm press conference for today where she will reportedly call for the flag's removal.

Controversy erupted around the flag that has flown on South Carolina’s State House grounds since 1962, when it was put there in defiance of the civil rights movement, after it flew at full mast the day after the gruesome murder of nine African-American churchgoers by an apparent white supremacist.

Pastor and South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney was one of the victims of the church attack. His body will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda where the flag flies right outside.

After pictures of the alleged shooter, Dylann Roof, posing in front of a Confederate Flag surfaced calls for the flags removal grew quickly.

A MoveOn.org petition demanding Haley “Remove the Confederate Flag From All Government Places” has already garnered over half a million signatures.

Removal of the flag would require a two-thirds majority in the state legislature where Republicans outnumber Democrats 106-64.

Over the weekend 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney called for the removal of the flag as a symbol of racism.