Bree Newsome taking down the Confederate Flag in Columbia, South Carolina
At about 7:30am last Saturday morning (June 27th), I received an unusually early text from a friend stating that a courageous woman had been in arrested in Columbia, South Carolina for somehow taking down the Confederate Flag and that people online were expecting me to step up and help.
Ten days before Bree Newsome shocked the world by scaling a Confederate monument in front of the South Carolina statehouse and taking down the Confederate Flag, a man who loved the flag and other racist symbols walked into Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and killed nine people, including State Senator Clementa Pinckney, in the deadliest single hate crime against African Americans in nearly 100 years.
For ten days, talks of the government taking it down were widely held, but nothing happened. On Wednesday, June 24th the ultimate insult took place as the body of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, on a horse drawn carriage, was slowly driven past the flag, fixed by lock and chain, and unable to even be lowered to half-staff.
At that point, on social media, I began discussing how it would be a worthwhile form of civil disobedience, for someone to simply scale the pole and remove the flag themselves. The entire government of South Carolina was treating the flag like the proverbial sword in the stone that simply could not be removed. It could, but they were choosing not to.
When I began discussing the forceful removal of the Confederate Flag, five different friends of mine, four of them leaders of successful companies and the other a well-known actress wrote me privately to say that they would each provide funds to support the first person who took it down - be it bail, legal fees, equipment costs, whatever. At first they pledged about $5,000 altogether.
Without a lot of thought, I then tweeted something that frustrated a lot of people when I said I had $5,000 for the first person who would bring down the flag. After I tweeted it, more pledges from my friends came in, and I tweeted that I had $10,000 for the first person to take down the flag. More pledges came in, but the backlash was pretty swift. To be clear, people didn't start sending me checks or cash through Western Union, they were just texting and emailing and direct messaging me that they would help.
Some people loved the idea and wanted to chip in. Hundreds shared it, but by in large, the response was negative. In my haste to get the idea out into the open, I framed it poorly from the start. I made it sound like a bounty or a reward someone could just blow, when it was really meant to help whoever did it with the legal expenses they'd surely incur from such an act.
I made up in my mind that it was worth it and fully planned on leaving the tweets I wrote and the offer up. My thought was that it was hard to take it back once it existed and could be screenshotted and shared widely and that taking it back would be nearly impossible. Finally, two members of my personal advisory board wrote me and said it was in bad taste and was more of a distraction than anything else. I removed it, apologized for being careless and a somewhat foolhardy, and openly said I'd accept whatever criticism came my way for the idea.
Privately, later that evening, a really good man emailed me and said he fully planned on traveling to South Carolina and taking it down himself. For him it wasn't about the money either, but about the principle of seeing a symbol of hatred fly so boldly in our country. He had already purchased the climbing harness, set the date, found a friend to travel with him, and was ready to go. I let him know that I'd still help him with support for bail, attorneys, and more.
In anticipation of his climb, I contacted a good friend of mine, a classmate from Morehouse, who is an attorney in South Carolina to see if he was willing to represent this young man after he would surely be arrested. He agreed to represent him. That was the day before Bree Newsome so boldly did it herself.
My family and I had already planned an out of state trip for months. As a general rule, in part because of the intensity of my work, when I take a vacation with my family I have a no-tech policy where I don't even take my devices or stay on the net, so that I can fully plug into the wife and kids. This was no different.
The night before Bree Newsome took the flag down, which was also the night before we were hitting the road on a cross country trip, I tweeted this and didn't expect to touch the phone again for a week.
Less than 12 hours after I tweeted that I was offline for the week, I received the text about Bree. I had no idea of her plans. In fact, I didn't even know it was her who had done it when I tweeted this.
At the time, I didn't know if she was alone, if she did it at all because of the tweets I had put there a few days earlier, if she was expecting me to help. All I knew was that some brave woman scaled the pole and took down the flag.
I didn't know her team, her plan, anything. From social media I saw her first photos and learned that it was Bree Newsome. We had interacted a bit on Twitter over the past year, but didn't know each other personally.
Immediately, I called my attorney friends in South Carolina and we agreed that State Representative Todd Rutherford, the minority leader of the state house, a respected defense attorney in Columbia, and a personal friend of Rev. Clementa Pinckney would be the best person to represent Bree. At the time we didn't even know that James Stone had been arrested with her.
My family graciously agreed to allow me to use the morning to help Bree however I could. Soon I found out that Bree had a team there with her that had helped think it all through. I spoke with the team directly and told them I had several donors ready to support Bree and James however they needed and that they would pay to bail them out immediately.
Rep. Rutherford and I spoke half a dozen times throughout the day as he visited the jail and met with Bree and James, figured out what their bail would be, and helped them navigate through the day. He agreed to represent them in South Carolina in their future hearings. I communicated to him that I had donors who'd cover the costs.
At that time Bree's team wrote me specifically and said that people online were suggesting Bree took down the flag for the money. She hadn't. I knew she hadn't. Her team directly communicated to me that she didn't want the money, didn't do it for the money, and never would have. I regret that my comments a few days earlier ever clouded that for Bree or anyone else.
Her bravery, courage, strength, and clarity have all stood alone and have, thankfully, far outshone anything I've said that could've gotten in her way. The truth is, I don't think anything or anybody could've stood in the way of what Bree did. For me, as I reflect back on a year that includes the murders of nine women and men in Charleston as well as Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Tanisha Anderson, Eric Garner, Monroe Bird, Akai Gurley, Freddie Gray, and so many others, the boldness of Bree Newsome stands out as a shining light, a beacon of hope, an act of courage in face of systemic oppression. Bree - thank you so much for your courage and resolve.
It's hard, nearly impossible even, to judge history while you are in. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956, they weren't calling it the Civil Rights Movement yet. It just was. Right now, we are in something. I don't know what it will be called, but the protest movement against police brutality and systemic racism from our government is historic. Bree Newsome stepped into history when she scaled that flag pole in Columbia and boldly took down a symbol oppression that should never have flown on the capitol in the first place. I think the images of her taking it down will stand for generations as one of the best examples ever of what it means to decide you are sick and tired of being sick tired of injustice and are willing to take direct action against oppression.
I've spoke with Bree and offered her my full and unwavering support - private or public. She is my hero and is already a legend in the eyes of my entire family. I don't have any money that is "owed" to her and never did. Most of the women and men who pledged it in the first place, all through email and Twitter direct messages, not through bank accounts, have quietly given it elsewhere and will continue to do so.
This coming week, South Carolina will host a debate on the removal of the Confederate Flag. It's a disgrace that it even requires such a thing. My deepest desire is that it will be removed soon not just from South Carolina but from each and every government sponsored flag in our country. Yes, it's a symbol, but symbols have meaning. It meant something real to the man who murdered nine members of Emanuel AME and, for decades, it has meant something to racists hell bent on terrorizing African Americans across this country.
We have a lot of work to do, but this much I know, our nation is better because of the boldness of Bree Newsome and I look forward to her leadership in the days and months ahead.