South Carolina Republican: scrap slave memorial if Confederate monument goes

A South Carolina candidate for US Congress, who has been criticized for using the 2015 killings of nine black church members in a campaign advert, has said the removal of a Confederate monument in the state should be matched by the removal of a memorial to African American slaves.

Sheri Few, who is running for South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, was condemned by the pastor of the Emanuel AME church last week for a “completely distasteful” advertisement in which she criticized “weak politicians” for removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s statehouse in 2015, while wielding a semi-automatic rifle.

Few has made the flag’s removal, and the preservation of Confederate memorabilia, a central part of her campaign. On Monday she told the Guardian she stood by her controversial ad, and said if elected she would focus on “fighting the destruction of every bit of Confederate memorabilia in our country”.