Dodd calls for removal of Confederate flag
GREENVILLE, S.C. --U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., called for the removal of the Confederate flag that flies at the South Carolina Statehouse as he attended a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial event at a Greenville church Sunday night.
"I don't think it belongs on the Capitol grounds," Dodd said in an interview before speaking at Springfield Baptist Church. "It belongs in a museum."
Young people from South Carolina -- black and white -- are serving in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan under one flag, Dodd said. The historic context of the Confederate flag is best shown in a museum, he said.
He said former Democratic South Carolina Gov. Dick Riley had it right more than two decades ago in wanting the flag removed. Dodd, who launched his presidential bid Thursday, met with Riley, former Clinton administration education secretary, Sunday in Greenville.
Dodd will be at the South Carolina NAACP's King Day at the Dome rally at the Statehouse Monday started six years ago as the civil rights organization launched economic sanctions against South Carolina to force the flag from the Capitol dome.
At the time, the Confederate flag flew atop the dome and in House and Senate chambers. Legislators that year agreed to remove the flags from those locations and put the banner at the Confederate Soldier Monument outside.
Dodd isn't the only declared presidential candidate at the event. U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware will be there, too.
Biden didn't immediately respond to interview requests on the flag while he attended an MLK event at one of Columbia's oldest black churches.
It's been a crowded weekend for candidates and those wanting to win the Palmetto State's first-in-the-South 2008 presidential primary. The Democratic National Committee's calendar sets South Carolina's primary a week after New Hampshire's and following caucuses in Iowa and Nevada.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is expected to announce his presidential plans before the end of the month was in Columbia on Friday trying to line up potential supporters and in Greenville on Saturday night helping the state Democratic Party raise badly needed cash.
