After the horrendous killings at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal earlier this year, South Carolinians voted on whether or not to remove the Confederate flag, the longtime symbol of racism, that was displayed outside their statehouse. What should have been an easy and quick decision ended up being difficult and drawn out. By the end of it, however, a compromise was reached: the flag would be displayed at the State Museum's Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum Commission. Now, the commission in charge of the Relic Room have proposed a $3.6 million budget, a sum they consider necessary to house the flag.
Not only do they want to house the one flag removed from the statehouse, but according to the Charlotte Observer, they plan on opening a new wing all together where they will put other Confederate flags from war time on display. In addition to the flags, the commission wants an electronic presentation of all 24,000 South Carolina Confederate soldiers that were killed during the Civil War. The most obscene part of it all: $3.6 million is the reduced budget. The initial proposed budget was $5.3 million.
"Just putting [the flag] in a box won't settle a controversy that has gone on," Allen Roberson, the director of the Relic Room at the State Museum told the Charlotte Observer. "We are the institution to resolve this. And this is a solution to resolve the problem as best as we can."
Anyway, a decision on the budget has to be reached by Jan. 1.
