I grew up in SC and have always had a major interest in Southern history. It's always fascinated and disturbed me the perspective on the Civil War that is prevalent among even well educated people in the state. I worked as a tour guide at two antebellum plantations throughout high school and during the summers when I was home from Wake. I routinely had long discussions about the origins of the war and it's legacy.
Many if not most here completely buy into the romanticized Lost Cause mythology of the war and virtually any discussion of the role of slavery is conditioned with a hedge about a myriad of other causes such as tariffs/trade policy and most of all state's rights. All this ignores that these disputes were all rooted on the necessity of slavery to the white Southern economy and way of life. Look at the secession declarations for each of the Confederate states. The preservation of slavery is first and foremost in every one of them. You won't find the word tariff once.
Beyond just the flag in Columbia, I find far more disturbing how figures like Ben Tillman and Wade Hampton, who were by any definition white supremacist terrorists, have statues erected for them and their names plastered on buildings, schools, and roads throughout the state. The most famous building on Clemson's campus is Tillman Hall, named for a man that once said regarding a massacre of blacks in Hamburg, SC:
The purpose of our visit to Hamburg was to strike terror, and the next morning (Sunday) when the negroes who had fled to the swamp returned to the town (some of them never did return, but kept on going) the ghastly sight which met their gaze of seven dead negroes lying stark and stiff, certainly had its effect ... It was now after midnight, and the moon high in the heavens looked down peacefully on the deserted town and dead negroes, whose lives had been offered up as a sacrifice to the fanatical teachings and fiendish hate of those who sought to substitute the rule of the African for that of the Caucasian in South Carolina
