By CHELSEA HALLUMS, age 12
PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons
The Confederate flag represented the southern states that tried to separate from the rest of the United States in 1861 to avoid freeing their slaves. In June, Dylann Roof murdered nine black church members at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina and used the flag as a symbol of his racism. Many since have questioned why the flag still flew above the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol. African-American activist Bree Newsome took matters into her own hands and took it down herself, resulting in her arrest. Days later, South Carolina voted to remove their flag, sparking a rally by the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist organization, to keep up the flag. On July 10, the flag was officially taken down by the state.
