COLUMBIA, SC (NBC) – Two activists were arrested early Saturday after one removed the Confederate flag from a pole outside South Carolina’s Statehouse in Columbia, officials said. The flag was quickly replaced.
Brittany Ann Byuarim Newsome, 30, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was seen scaling the pole at about 6:15 a.m., and refused to come down until she had unhooked the flag, South Carolina Department of Public Safety Bureau of Protective Services said in a statement.
She and a man who was inside the fence helping her – James Ian Tyson, 30, of Charlotte, North Carolina – were arrested and charged with defacing a monument.
“The flag was replaced with a new flag within about an hour and no further damage was done,” the statement from officials said.
The incident followed widespread calls for the rebel banner’s removal after the massacre of nine black people at a Charleston church in the city earlier this month by a white gunman. The two face a fine of up to $5,000 or up to three years’ prison time. Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson told MSNBC he was “delighted” that activists had pulled down the Confederate flag.
“They pulled it down in a non-violent way,” he said. “Activists have a way of pushing the envelope for change.”
Newsome, a writer and singer who goes by the first name Bree, could not immediately be reached for comment. On Twitter, supporters used the hashtag “#freebree,” and shared video of her sliding down the 30-foot pole with the Confederate flag in hand, clad in climbing gear.
She and Tyson were still in custody as of late Saturday morning. As “#freebree” became a top trending hashtag, various people, including filmmaker Michael Moore, offered to pay her bail. Activists who described themselves as a multiracial group of “concerned citizens” said they were behind the flag’s removal.
“We took this task in our own hands because our President, Governor, mayors, legislators, and councilmen had a moral duty to remove the flag but failed to act. We could not sit by and watch the victims of the Charleston Massacre be laid to rest while the inspiration for their deaths continue to fly above their caskets,” the group said in a statement.
The incident came hours before a pro-Confederate flag rally at the state capital. Funerals are being held Saturday for three of the victims of the Charleston church shooting: Cynthia Hurd, 54, Susie Jackson, 87, and Tywanza Sanders, 26. In an emotional eulogy on Friday, President Obama paid tribute to the church’s pastor, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was among the nine killed.
