A Republican gubernatorial candidate in South Carolina told a public forum she is “proud of the Confederacy” and said that they would not “rewrite history” be removing Confederate monuments in the state on Tuesday evening, according to the Post and Courier.
“I’ve already said and mean it from the bottom of my heart that I’m proud to be from South Carolina, I’m proud of the Confederacy,” Catherine Templeton said to a town hall in Pickens County, a conservative area of South Carolina near North Carolina and Georgia.
“But I’m not going to second guess what the people in the Statehouse did when I wasn’t there. I live in Charleston, and I drive by Mother Emmanuel on a daily basis. And a bad person took something that’s dear to us, took our heritage, and turned it into hate. And I think we reacted as a result.”
In 2015 shooter Dylann Roof entered the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, where he killed nine African-Americans. The South Carolina Statehouse voted to remove the Confederate flag from its grounds and remains an important issue in South Carolina.
At the town hall meeting, a man identifying himself as a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans asked Templeton about her views on Confederate heritage after some Southern states have voted to remove Confederate monuments.
“Not on my watch,” Templeton said. “I don’t think there’s anything else to say about it. You cannot rewrite history. I don’t care whose feelings it hurts. You cannot rewrite history.”
Another attendee at the town hall later asked her whether she would have voted to remove the flag from the Statehouse if she had been a member of the state’s General Assembly at the time.
“I think what we did was we reacted,” she said. “I think that’s what happens in government a lot. We have an emergency, and we create a response because it’s the only thing we have control over.”
The Post and Courier reported a consulting firm that Templeton worked for released a statement praising the decision to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse,.
Templeton also said that she would back a bill to ban removing any monuments from the Statehouse, which has monuments to some Confederates.
“I would not allow monuments to be taken down,” said Templeton. “We are not going to rewrite history.”
African-American leaders in South Carolina have criticized Templeton’s comments.
“We’re continuing the same mindset that brought us Dylann Roof,” Dot Scott, president of the NAACP’s Charleston chapter, said to the Post and Courier. “Dylann Roof did not rewrite history. He was reflecting history the way it is.”
The elder presiding over the AME church’s Beaufort district, Joe Darby, also criticized her comments to the Post and Courier.
“I don’t think she understands the diversity we have in South Carolina and that we’re not all a bunch of flag-waving yahoos,” he said. “When you elevate the Confederacy, you stomp on the memories of those who were subjugated, the slaves. She’s stomping on my ancestors. If she’s proud of her heritage over nine lives, it’s a shame.”
Templeton did not respond to a request for comment from the Post and Courier.
