Bible study went on, as usual a week after nine members of the church were murdered during that bible study. A very solemn public tribute to a son. The body of the late reverend Clementa Pinckney is lying in the state capital rotunda. People loved him here and are going to miss him a lot. A black drape blocking the view of the flag outside. What began as a push to remove one flag has grown to a national movement. Alabama just removed its Confederate Flag from the state capital grounds. In mississippi, the republican speaker of the house called for the emblem to be removed from his states flag. Our future as a nation has been changed. South carolina senator tim scott introduced a resolution honoring all nine victims. One of the victims sons said with great enthusiasm this evil attack would lead to reconciliation restoration and unity in 0 our nation. Those were power ful words. Change can happen at anytime, any place. We still have so much to do to correct the ills of our society. Alabamas segregationist governor George Wallace first raised the Confederate Flag over the state capital dome on april 25th 1963. Alabamas segregationist politicians had been happily governing in the state house without help or inspiration of the Confederate Flag. Governor wallace raised the flag that day, not in honor of confederate soldiers but in defiance of the United States of america. Specific defiance of the attorney general of the United States robert kennedy, who came to visit George Wallace that day to tell him that the United States government would crush him, if he carried out his announced plan to stand in the doorway of the university of alabama to prevent the first black students from entering the university. Months later, wallace flamboyantly stood in that doorway and, as promised, was pushed aside by the National Guard on the orders of president kennedy. And the Confederate Flag continued to fly over the Alabama State capital, as nothing but a symbol of defiance. Defiance crushed by the government of the United States of america. As of today, that flag is no longer flying. The governor bentley had all four Confederate Flags on the grounds removed this morning. In South Carolina today, thousands of people came to pay their respects to state senator Clementa Pinckney whose body is lying in state in the capital row dunn ta. According to the charleston post and courier, he is the first africanamerican given the honor since reconstruction. Black curtain was placed over a window of the rotunda to block the view of the Confederate Flag which continues to fly on state house grounds. While the legislature debates its removal. The National Wake for the victims of the massacre at Mother Emanuel Church in charleston came to washington today where South Carolinas junior senator tim scott told the senate about his conversations with victims families and how they hope this tragedy has changed this country. It is with Great Sadness and amazing hope that our future as a nation has been changed. It has been changed because one person decided to murder nine. Its been changed because the response of those nine families has been so core rageousurageous and inspiring. If you will permit me i will read the names of those nine individuals. We honor the reverend sharonda singleton, a beloved teacher, coach at goose creek high school. Her son chris has shown us what an amazing mother she was. His strength over the past six days. We honor cynthia hurd. Whos love for education has been shared for over 31 years. As a librarian. We honor Susie Jackson who at 87 years young still offered her beautiful voice to the choir and recently returned from visiting her family in ohio. We honor ethel lance who served her church with pride. Whose daughter calleds her the strong woman who just tried to keep her family together. We honor depayne middletondoctor who dedicated her life to serving the poor and helping her students as an enrollment and counselor at southern wesleyan university. We honor, my good friend reverend Clementa Pinckney. An amazing man of faith, a great dad and a wonderful father. We honor tywanza sanders, beloved son of tyrone and felicia, whose warmth and heartfelt spirit has kept us moving. We honor the reverend daniel simmons, sr. Whose grand daughter said my grand daddy was an amazing man. It seemed every time he spoke it was pure wisdom. And we honor pastor myra thompson. Who served the lord with grace and dignity. She loved her children, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren. If you would just pause for nine seconds, a second for each one with, id appreciate it. Thank you. Joining us now, the president an council of the Naacp Legal Defense Fund and professor at the university of Maryland School of law. Also joining us kosh cobb contributing writer for the director of africanamerican studies at the university of connecticut and jameel smith, Senior Editor for the new republic. It feels to me like we are in the midst of a National Wake and at wakes important things get said. Small personal things get said and our minds wander over the days of these things and i want you to share whatever your thoughts are at this point as we move through this week. Lawrence, i think a you are right. There is a National Mourning thats happening. I also think at the same time theres a national waking up thats happening. I think that a lot of what we are seeing around the Confederate Flag is about waking up to an issue that has been hiding in plain sight for so many of us for decades. Its actually been quite interesting to hear the genuine surprise of some people about the way in which the Confederate Flag is perceived. Its also been interesting to see the quickness with which a number of officials have changed their view about maintaining the Confederate Flag. I think this massacre that happened at Emanuel Ame Church really has shocked people. It has focused our amention a way that i think is powerful and important. Lawrence, like all of us who have lost someone that we cared for, we know there are stages that we go through. Theres this intensity of grief very early on in which we do feel the powerful weight of mortality and the resolve to do things differently when our ears are open to hear our colleagues our brothers our family members and neighbors in ways they werent before. But if that is not nurtured if that is not captured its not long before we slide in to the old pattern and before we forget the way in which our ears were opened in that period when we first felt sorrow and greechl i think thats the danger we are in right now as a country. We are go to bury our dead this week in charleston. No doubt the president will deliver a powerful and stirring eulogy. We will have a weekend and we will have a Supreme Court term end and there will be a decision and several Supreme Court cases including Fair Housing Act and Marriage Equality and health care. And the conversation will begin to drift away from the moments that we find ourselves in today. Thats, i think, the danger. The question is how do we capture the spirit of this moment . How do we make these lives that were lost so awfully and needlessly not be in vain by getting to the heart of the issue. Not just the Confederate Flag but the real issue of Structural Racism to the issues that created someone like a dylann roof to the reality of White Supremacy and white supremacist thinking that exists. Thats the heavy lift, the hard longterm work and i hope were up for it. Sglipt to play some of what George Wallace had to say in 1963 simply because i think some of the audience is young enough to need a clear understanding of just how main stream dylann roofs thinking was in 1963 in the white south. Lets listen to governor wallace. If you sfwoend pass this bill, you should make preparations to withdrawal our troops and burn in vietnam and the rest of the world because they will be needed to police this country. They will make American People law violators because they are not going to comply with this type legislation. A president that sponsors le legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1963 should be retired from public life. There is a Straight Line a Straight Line from George Wallace to dylann roof. Absolutely. There are some things we should talk about. What wallace was really representing. He was not, you know outside of a context there. He was existing very much in what was the main stream of southern political thought at that point in time. I think the best way of understanding the difference and the context in which the confederacy or the Confederate Flag came to the floor is to think about, you know we are now four decades past the end of vietnam. And the shadow of vietnam has hung over this country ever since the fall of saigon. All soul searching and krim nation and the way vietnam remained the shadow in the path of American Military intervention ever since then. This is the first time the country had to grapple with the idea of military defeat. Except the south, a full century before this had gone through this idea of grappling and soul searching and then a kind of denial that comes with the bitterness of military defeat. So the south is very particular in these ways. So for this generation of people who immediately have fought in the war, many of them thought the Confederate Flag should be put away. Should be an element of history. For people that came after them who felt the need to defend their forbearers, they couldnt come out and say we were fighting on behalf of slavery. They had to come up with a euphemism to say we are fighting on behalf of heritage or valuer and the mythology the civil war was not fought about slavery but tariffs, which is kind of absurd idea. All of these things come together and you understand why we have this denial that comes to the foreground then. The denial was formalized in Southern Public School education, the kids were taught that the civil war was not about slavery. Indeed. The Confederate Flag certainly flying in front of the state house, on top of the state house didnt nothing to dissuade them. It serves today, even though it certainly doesnt serve the same purpose as George Wallace intended it certainly serves today as a trigger for all africanamericans, young and old, that see it and know that you know it just it shows its an indicator of the racial pain that cannot yet be visited on black bodies the same way that dylann roof did on that church. Were going to take a break and come back with more of this conversation including about southern politics now, southern president ial politics. Coming up, a new arrest tonight in the prison escape in new york and tsarnaev apologized in a boston courtroom where he was formally sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombing and as Confederate Flag continue to come down we will consider how politics is changing in the south. Guys with erectile dysfunction get and keep an erection. Talk to your doctor about viagra. Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. 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Today senator Patrick Leahy introduced a bill to restore much of the Voting Rights act the Supreme Court invalidated two years ago. It would compel states with documented voting discrimination to clear voting changes with the federal government and require approval for voting i. D. Laws. Up next the southern strategy that republican president ial candidates have been using since nixon won the white house in 1968. Automotive innovation starts. Right here. With a control pad that can read your handwriting, a widescreen multimedia center, and a headup display for enhanced driver focus. All inside a redesigned cabin of unrivaled style and comfort. The 2015 cclass. At the very touchpoint of performance and innovation. Head shoulders with old spice. Americas number one male dandruff brand. Keeping you 100 flakefree. Guaranteed. While smelling 100 handsome. Take a whiff. Head shoulders with old spice. When president johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights acts in 1965, he told confidants the Democratic Party had just lost the south for a generation. Republicans seized that political opportunity and the successful 1968 president ial campaign of Richard Nixon was the first to use what came to be known as the southern strategy. To win the Electoral College by using the south as the Republican Base legendary republican strategist lee atwater explained it this way you start out in 1954 by saying [ bleep ], [ bleep ], [ bleep ], [ bleep ] pitch 1968 you cant say [ bleep ]. That hurts you. It backfires. So you say stuff like and 0 so abstract now you are talking about can youing taxes and all of these things are economic things an the byproduct blacks get hurt worse than whites. An article in the week about the southern strategy points out in 1980, Ronald Reagan announced his campaign for president in the town of philadelphia mississippi where civil rights workers were murdered in 1965. He was not there to promote racial healing. But the math of the southern strategy is no longer working for republicans. Mitt romney won all of the deep south in 2012 and won white voters by more than 20 points but lost to barack obama by 126 electoral votes. Joining us now is ryan Cooper National correspondent at the week. Com 0. So ryan is the southern strategy dead for republicans . I would say it is not exactly dead. They are still going to try to win the south because thats their most solid base of support. However, its not going to win them the president cy like it used to. My colleague paul waldman who wrote that piece as he pointed out in the 80s when reagan was running that operation white voters were 90 of the electorate and now 70 of the electorate. The math doesnt work anymore. You try these things and its just going to hurt you more than help. So they are searching for a new strategy. To hear lee atwater explain the semantic change you had to go through was with just an open page of the republican play book he was showing us there. Yeah its really quite interesting to hear. Profess lopez has written a book called dog whistle politics. It is true the numbers are different now. Theres Something Else that is true, lawrence. That is in the 1980s, people still believed in politics. Were dealing with a different electorate across the board of people who have been soured, who feel they have been betrayed. The economic crisis of 2008 hit americans so hard across the board including White Working Class americans. Also in the south. What that means is you can not rely on that population to turn out in the numbers. That is to be passionate about a president ial election in the way they might have been in the 1980s. Not only are we talking about the size of the electorate, but we are talking arve your ability to count on that electorate to turn out because they feel passionate about politics. Many of those voters are now disaffected