Two years ago the NAACP issued a call for a tourism boycott of South Carolina, urging those going through the state not to stop or spend money until the Confederate flag is removed from the Capitol grounds.

Nelson Rivers III, a leader of the action, told a press conference that a "confederacy of the mind" persists in South Carolina. Rivers said the decision of the state to keep the flag on Capitol grounds is part of a pattern of racism and discrimination, along with decrepit schools and racial profiling by police.

Nearly half the protesters at the march and rally were young people, many of them members of NAACP chapters that organized caravans to the action from several colleges in Georgia. The Young Socialists brought a five-person delegation from Asheville and Kannapolis, North Carolina.

Michael Good, a vice president of the South Carolina Youth and College division of the NAACP, told the Militant, "Young people want to know 'how long are we going to have to fight the Civil War in 2002?' We cannot compromise with wrong or evil. We are standing up for what is right."

About 15 counterdemonstrators waved giant Confederate flags and held signs that said, "Welcome to South Carolina" and "Boycott the boycott." During the march men on motorcycles drove past with engines revving in an attempt to drown out the protesters' chants. One young white participant in the action from North Carolina came in for special verbal attack as counterprotesters drove past.

NAACP "border patrols," in which supporters of the campaign station themselves at welcome centers in South Carolina and urge people not to spend money while traveling through the state, have come under intense scrutiny and attack from racists and the state of South Carolina. For example, a week after the first one was mounted, a racist "white-rights" group called the European-American Unity Rights Organization (EURO), based in New Orleans, organized what they called "welcome patrols." The outfit is affiliated with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The attorney general of South Carolina, Charles Condon, filed a lawsuit March 18 against the NAACP and EURO for the actions at the welcoming centers. Condon says the actions, violate "state and federal law regulating permissible activities at interstate rest stops and welcome centers." Condon is also asking that the state courts order the two groups to pay for the costs of the state police stationed at centers.  
 
 
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