2008 Woodie Awards
Biden wants Confederate flag off S.C. Statehouse grounds
Jim Davenport, Associated Press
Issue date: 1/17/07 Section: News
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds.
"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds _ out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.
In Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama, also prominently mentioned in speculation about the White House sweepstakes in 2008, was a hit at a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition breakfast honoring King, even if he didn't deliver what much of the crowd clearly wanted: a declaration that he will run for president.
Obama received a standing ovation at the annual King scholarship breakfast when the Rev. Jesse Jackson introduced him with an approving reference to the Illinois Democrat's presidential aspirations.
"It's a long, nonstop line between the march in Selma in 1965 and the inauguration in Washington in 2009," said Jackson, the coalition's founder and a one-time presidential candidate himself.
Later, in an address at a King remembrance service at St. Mark's Church in suburban Harvey, Obama said: "I'm not making news today. I'm not here to make news. There will be a time for that."
Referring to his visit to an economically depressed south Chicago suburb, he said: "Some folks were surprised I was coming to Harvey. But as I recall, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Manhattan, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Beverly Hills. We'd do well to remember that before he was a leader of men, he was a servant of God."
Screaming admirers managed to get his autograph after the address, in which he advocated removing troops from Iraq, rebuilding struggling areas such as Harvey and increasing civic activism and called on people, especially fathers, to be better parents.
More than six years after the Confederate flag was taken down from the South Carolina Capitol dome, its location in front of the Statehouse remains an issue at the heart of events celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.
"If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds _ out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state.
In Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama, also prominently mentioned in speculation about the White House sweepstakes in 2008, was a hit at a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition breakfast honoring King, even if he didn't deliver what much of the crowd clearly wanted: a declaration that he will run for president.
Obama received a standing ovation at the annual King scholarship breakfast when the Rev. Jesse Jackson introduced him with an approving reference to the Illinois Democrat's presidential aspirations.
"It's a long, nonstop line between the march in Selma in 1965 and the inauguration in Washington in 2009," said Jackson, the coalition's founder and a one-time presidential candidate himself.
Later, in an address at a King remembrance service at St. Mark's Church in suburban Harvey, Obama said: "I'm not making news today. I'm not here to make news. There will be a time for that."
Referring to his visit to an economically depressed south Chicago suburb, he said: "Some folks were surprised I was coming to Harvey. But as I recall, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Manhattan, Dr. King wasn't hanging out in Beverly Hills. We'd do well to remember that before he was a leader of men, he was a servant of God."
Screaming admirers managed to get his autograph after the address, in which he advocated removing troops from Iraq, rebuilding struggling areas such as Harvey and increasing civic activism and called on people, especially fathers, to be better parents.
More than six years after the Confederate flag was taken down from the South Carolina Capitol dome, its location in front of the Statehouse remains an issue at the heart of events celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy.
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