US House votes to ban Confederate flags from cemeteries in the South

Flag ban is part of a bigger bill funding the National Park Service

(Getty Images)

The US House of Representatives has voted to ban Confederate flags from being displayed at federal cemeteries in the South, according to a report from the Charleston Post and Courier.

The flag ban was added to a bill securing the funding of the National Park Service, which maintains 14 national cemeteries.

US Representatives passed the amendment that will allow the Park Service to block private groups from placing Confederate flags in cemeteries that celebrate Confederate Memorial Day. The affected cemeteries are the Andersonville and Vicksburg cemeteries in Georgia and Mississippi, respectively.

“The American Civil War was fought, in Abraham Lincoln’s words, to ‘save the last best hope of Earth,”’ Representative Jared Huffman said during the debate. “We can honor that history without celebrating the Confederate flag and all of the dreadful things that it symbolizes.”

The Park Service funding bill will receive a final vote on Thursday.

House members voting to ban the Confederate flag from cemeteries is the latest in a wave of momentum working against the flag, a wave to took off last month with the massacre of nine black parishioners at the hands of a white gunman in Charleston, South Carolina.

The South Carolina legislature is debating a bill that calls for the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House. The state Senate approved the bill on Tuesday and it now resides in the House.

If the House agrees with the Senate, the bill will go to the desk of Governor Nikki Haley, who has indicated she would sign the bill and remove the flag.

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