Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee said Sunday that removing the Confederate flag, which he called a symbol of bigotry, racial hatred, and inequality, “is simply not enough.”
This week South Carolina’s Governor Nikki Haley, R-S.C., called on the state legislature to remove the flag, but Cummings said that action alone is not enough and much more needs to be done in this country on race.
In the wake of the mass shooting in South Carolina, the flag’s removal would represent “a major thing that has to happen, and it will happen, I agree,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And I applaud the folks in South Carolina for doing that. I also applaud the governor of Alabama for doing what he’s done, taking down the flag. But that is simply not enough.”
“Now we must begin to address racial disparities and inequalities themselves,” he said.
The country should follow the efforts of Baltimore’s mayor, he said, pointing to progress in Baltimore after the violent protests following Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. Local and federal officials followed through on criminal justice and education reform promises and are fighting joblessness. “They have not slipped back [into] business as usual,” Cummings said. “I think the mayor [of Baltimore] has worked very hard to pull us together.”
