At four a.m. last Sunday, civil rights activists began gathering at the Defenders of the Confederacy monument near the corner of the Charleston Battery. Overlooking the harbor as the sun rose they waited for Confederate flaggers, a group who began demonstrating across South Carolina in 2015 after the Confederate battle flag was removed from the statehouse grounds. In 2017 they took up a weekly residence at the Charleston monument.

“Normally, you would see Confederates, or Neo-Confederates, Neo-Nazis - I really don't know what they identify as. But they are usually here protecting the statue,” says 32 year-old Dexter W., who was born in Charleston. Like many in his group, Dexter was at the monument before the sun rose. “I think it's important to note too, the statue is the Defenders of the Confederacy. Technically, that's kinda treason, to go against the United States. But ‘the patriots’ are out here, protecting a statue of racism — of systematic oppression. It's more than just a statue, it's what the statue represents. Because symbols matter.”

‘The patriots’ he refers to identify a newer group demonstrating at the monument, We the People, who have mobilized following the removal of the Calhoun Monument. Dexter says that even though tensions may appear higher right now, it’s actually the result of a more honest approach to racism, brought into the open with a greater presence in media, including social.

Greta Anderson, born and raised in Charleston, has been participating in counter-protests at the Battery since 2017. “I stand there, to tell people that come to my city, that this is not what we're about. This is not Charleston.”

Many in the opposing groups are on first name basis with another. Anderson says her face has even appeared on decals made by the flaggers.

As morning moves along, flaggers and supporters slowly arrive to find their protest spot occupied. Police keep the groups separate, and some of the flaggers head over to the waterfront. One of them is Walter Barnes, who doesn’t actually have a flag, but makes up for it with passion. He shouts about a family tree stretching 400 years into Charleston’s past, and says that he started joining the protests a few weeks ago.

“These are paid protestors,” says Barnes, “They are gonna make us all slaves. We are going to lose every single one of our god given rights.” He is convinced that George Soros is behind the activists across the street and when he shouts at Dexter and his crew, spittle launches into the air.

“Soros is an old white Nazi racist who don’t give a damn about black people. Never has, never will. They are using them to cause all this aggravation,” he says, “Racism died one hundred years ago. This right here is a travesty of justice.”

Soros is a Hungarian-American Jewish liberal billionaire who survived the Nazi occupation of his native country as a teenager. He is known for his financial support of progressive ideals. Barnes is also convinced that John C. Calhoun was against slavery.

Calhoun, a U.S. Senator representing South Carolina and the seventh American vice president, is known for his adamant support of slavery. In January of 1837 Calhoun gave a speech in the Senate where he described owning humans not as a necessary evil, but rather, a "positive good" benefiting both slaves and their owners.

Occupying the monument, civil rights activists previously reached out to city officials earlier in the week. Denied a permit, but also informed none had been issued, they came to the conclusion that whomever got the monument space first would have legal right to protest there.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m. police present Jason Jones, founder of the Change is Coming group, a document in an email on an officer’s phone. “He showed me a handwritten permit, and that was a permit for ‘police action,’ so we’re still confused on whether that is an actual permit from the city.”

Jones thinks the rules are changing during the game and questions the permit’s validity. But after deliberation, he asks his party to head to the other side, explaining that they’ll fight this particular battle in the coming week. City officials acknowledge that pandemic response measures have changed permitting procedure.

“This is the first group effort between activists of Columbia and Charleston,” explains Justin Hunt, the president of Stand as One organization. Originally from Charleston, Hunt moved to Columbia last summer. “We have a lot of people from Columbia out here and we are counter protesting a Confederate rally that is supposed to be here today. We are following the law,” says Hunt. Civil rights activists on Sunday number about 40, including about 15 from the state capital.

Normally, the flaggers start around 7 a.m. each week. On Sunday, they don’t get a start until after 10 a.m.

“They did not do their routine this morning,” says Jones.

“That group has done this for years and this group decided that they were going to make a serious statement by coming in here,” says Pastor Thomas Dixon, during one of his multiple stops by the hours long demonstration.

Erik Corcoran, founder of We the People, carrying an Irish Flag in opposition to the civil rights activists, says his group stands peacefully for history. “All of it,” he says, “I would stand in front of a civil rights monument as fast as I would stand in front of that monument right over there.”

Around noon, law enforcement follows through with morning negotiations, requesting that the flaggers vacate the monument. Corcoran acknowledges some confusion about permits and says that his group will have one for next week. “Braxton Spivey has been coming out every week for about five years. I think there is times he has had a permit, and times he hadn’t needed a permit.”

“When law enforcement said, 'Erik, no harm will be done to the monument. You can leave, we'll secure it.' I said OK, we will disperse ourselves.”

When civil rights activists retake the monument, one man supporting the flaggers, Timothy Repak, returns to the front step. A small American flag in one hand and in the other, an empty disposable drink cup with no bottom, possibly an improvised bull horn — he faces off with opposing demonstrators. Without warning, he lunges down and chest bumps Greta Anderson, who is video recording with her cell phone. Stumbling backwards, she avoids a fall. Protestors surround Repak demanding his arrest and after viewing Anderson’s video, police take him away in cuffs.

By early afternoon most signs of the countering protests are gone, but they’ll be back next Sunday. And for the time being, the opposing groups will alternate weekly permits for the monument. Activists aligning with the Black Lives Matter movement will hold the permit for this Sunday, July 25.

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