George E. Curry

There’s a lesson to be learned from the Confederate flag quickly and unexpectedly falling into disfavor following the murder of nine Bible-studying African-Americans, including the pastor, at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. The lesson is that the economic clout of African-Americans and their progressive allies can be used to pressure businesses to do the right thing, which in turn can keep the far right wing in check.

First, it’s necessary to understand the role businesses played before and after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, reversed her long-held position and advocated for the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State Capitol in Columbia.

According to the New York Times, “The chairman of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, an old friend of Gov. Haley’s named Mikee Johnson, polled his 56 board members about the future of the flag. Everyone who responded was of the same opinion. He called Gov. Haley and told her: If she was ready to bring down the Confederate banner, they were behind her.

There were business reasons that motivated this change.

“They were tired of explaining why a symbol of the American Confederacy lingered at the capitol of a state that wanted to lure workers from all over the world,” the Times explained. “To many of them, it was a source of embarrassment that the NCAA would not pick South Carolina to host championship events because of the flag, and in the college-sports-crazy state, coaches said it was an obstacle to recruiting.”

To be clear, African-Americans were at the forefront of this movement long before the business community belatedly flexed its muscles.

On July 15, 1999, the NAACP announced a boycott of South Carolina because it refused to remove the racially offensive flag from the Capitol. Five days later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s old organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, voted to move its 2000 national convention from Charleston.

The floodgates were opened when Gov. Haley pronounced on June 22: “Today, we are here in a moment of unity in our state without ill will, to say it’s time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds. A hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War, the time has come.”

Within hours, a stampede of businesses, led by Walmart and Sears, announced they no longer would sell Confederate memorabilia. Other retailers fell in line, including Amazon, eBay, Target and Etsy.com.

This was old-fashioned capitalism at work. Why risk alienating a large base of consumers for the sake of a small segment of lunatics who not only wanted to turn back the clock, but wanted to turn back the calendar? Leaders throughout the South got the massage.

Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe decided Virginia will no longer sell license plates that honor the Old Confederacy. Alabama Republican Gov. Robert Bentley ordered four different Confederate flags at the state Capitol be promptly removed. In Mississippi, House Speaker Philip Gunn, a Republican, called for changing the state flag, which incorporates the Confederate insignia.

Black spending power reached $1.1 trillion in 2014, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. It’s time to exercise that clout by putting pressure on businesses, compelling them to apply pressure on Republican lawmakers who work against our interests.

The writer is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service.