Hundreds converged on the Charleston State Capitol asking to take down the confederate flag there, seen in pictures with Dylann Roof, the admitted killer of those inside a historic black church.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced it was time to take down the flag Monday.
Dr. Neal Lester is an Arizona State English professor and director of Project Humanities, an initiative to broaden perspectives and show interconnectedness of humanities within and across disciplines and to create positive change in people and communities across political, socioeconomic, geographic and cultural boundaries.
He said the confederate flag is a symbol of negativity.
"It represented segregation, it represented white supremacy," Lester said.
Lester said he wouldn't say the country needs to get rid of the flag but he said it shouldn't be displayed in such a public way that reminds people of a hurtful past.
"It's not giving in, but it's actually recognizing that gone with the wind day of mint julep was also a time of black bodies hanging from poplar trees," Lester said.
Over the years, groups like the KKK, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, adopted the flag which gave the flag its bad reputation.
Then in 1999, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, said in a resolution the flag needed to go elsewhere.
"The confederate battle flag doesn't belong anywhere other than a history museum," Jake Bennett, the regional director of the ADL, said.
But Dr. Robert Massey, a lieutenant with the Arizona Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said the flag is an emblem to him of what his relatives did during the war that began in 1861.
Massey said while he understands the war began because of slavery and denounces it, he said using what happened at that South Carolina church is not an excuse to rid the town of this flag.
"I don't see the connection between one evil, evil individual that killed nine folks in the most gruesome, horrible way," Massey said. "Trying to equate the confederate flag with something like that is a real stretch."
