Hundreds rally against Confederate flag
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - More than 600
people set out Sunday on a five-day, 120-mile
protest march to Columbia to urge state lawmak
ers to move the Confederate flag from the state
house dome.
“Take it down!,” chanted some marchers.
“The people of South Carolina - white and
African-American - want the flag to come
down,” said Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.,
who had the idea for the march.
“The purpose is to say the people of South
Carolina are in step, and we want the Legislature
to get in step with the people of South Carolina,”
said the mayor, who carried the blue state flag
with its white palmetto tree and crescent as he led
marchers into the street.
it The purpose is to say
the people of South
Carolina are in step,
and we want the
Legislature to get in
step with the people of
South Carolina.”
Joseph P. Riley
Charleston, S.C., mayor
The marchers will walk only during daylight
hours and plan to arrive in Columbia for a rally on
Thursday, when pro-flag supporters have also
scheduled a state house rally.
The National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People has called for a
tourism boycott of the state, saying the
Confederate flag above the state house in
Columbia is a racist emblem. Flag defenders say
it is a symbol of Southern heritage and honors the
Confederate war dead.
Only state lawmakers can move the flag from
the dome, and several plans are under considera
tion. Organizers of the “Get in Step” walk say it
should be moved from the dome to a place of
honor.
Vans and shuttle buses will take people to the
march so they can join as long as they can. It will
start each day where it ended the previous day.
Novelist Pat Conroy, a South Carolinian, was
on hand for the start of the march. But he said he
would pick up with the marchers again on
Thursday in Columbia.
“They would find me dead on the highway if
I tried to make the entire march,” he said.
Conroy said South Carolina lawmakers do
not like being told what to do but predicted the
march will help resolve the issue.
“It’s going to be such hideous publicity,
Newsmakers photo by Andy Lyons
ABOVE: PROTESTERS HOLD the Georgia state flag, which includes the Confederate battle flag
and the state seal of Georgia, as they march in front of the Georgia Dome before Super Bowl
XXXIV in Atlanta on January 30, 2000. Nearly 600 people were arrested in a larger protest
Sunday.
Newsmaker photo by Mark Wilson
RIGHT: THE CONFEDERATE flag flies over the State Capitol building in Columbia, South
Carolina. The flying of the Southern flag has once again become a political issue because of
the racist connotations many feel it endorses.
including this right here, that it will help,” he said.
One of those who marched Sunday was former
Gov. John West, a state lawmaker when the flag
was raised by the all-white 1962 General
Assembly.
West, who served as governor from 1971 to
1975, led an effort to get lawmakers who raised
the flag to ask for its removal.
“As I have had to say publicly, somewhat to
my embarrassment, in hindsight, one of the mis
takes I made as governor is not taking it down,” he
said. “It was not an issue then. Had it been an
issue, I would like to think I would have taken it
down.”
Paula Byers of James Island said she had two
great-grandfathers who fought for the South in
the Civil War.
“The Confederate flag is my heritage, but it
should have been taken down at the end of the
Civil War,” she said.
There was a single pro-flag demonstrator as
the marchers left a park on the edge of the city’s
historic district after a brief rally.
Carter Sabo of Charleston stood with a
Confederate flag and said he wanted to make sure
the flag is given a place of honor at the state
house. •" ~ - -
Internet businesses
rare in Fortune 500
NEW YORK (AP) - Despite the
startling rise in high-tech firms, just
one purely Internet company -
America Online Inc. - broke into the
ranks of the Old Economy stalwarts
this year, and only at No. 337 in the
annual Fortune 500.
Other technology companies
benefiting from the Internet boom
climbed in the magazine’s rankings,
but there was little evidence of the
Internet startups that have turned
twentysomethings into millionaires
because the list is based on 1999 rev
enue, not the companies’ stock val
ues.
MCI Worldcom Inc., one of the
world’s largest carriers of Internet
traffic, hit No. 25, up from No. 80, in
the list released Sunday and appear
ing in the magazine’s April 17 issue.
Dell Computer Co., the largest seller
of computers in the country, went to
56 from 78.
Microsoft Corp., the company
with the highest market value, rose
to 84 from 109, and Cisco Systems
Inc., which makes equipment fpr the
Internet, advanced to 146 from 192.
AOL wasn’t the only history
maker. Amgen Inc. became the first
biotechnology company, landing at
463. And Hewlett-Packard Co., No.
13, was the highest-ranking Fortune
500 company with a female chief
executive, Carleton Fiorina.
General Motors Corp. remained
No. 1 for the 12th consecutive year,
with revenues of $ 189 billion, but
Ford Motor Co. dropped from sec
ond to fourth place, displaced by
fast-growing retailer Wal-Mart
Stores Inc., previously in third.
GM’s lead over Wal-Mart, which
had $166 billion in revenue, may
look sizable, but Wal-Mart has had
annual growth in the double digits
for more than a decade, while GM’s
revenue dropped in 1998.
In third place was oil giant
Exxon Mobil Corp., following the
merger of Exxon Corp., previously
No. 4, and Mobil Corp., ranked No.
6 in 1998.
General Electric Co. remained
fifth in revenue, but led in profits,
stuffing its coffers with $10.7 bil
lion. The grandfather of computer
companies, International Business
Machines Corp. stayed in sixth
place, followed by Citigroup Inc.,
also unchanged from last year.
AT&T Corp. climbed from 10th
to eighth, pushing down Philip
Morris Cos. Inc. to ninth. Boeing
Co. fell from ninth to 10th.
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — French
archaeologists have discovered tfclL
remains of a 4,000-year-old queen’s
pyramid south of Cairo, complete
. with texts of special prayers preVf^
ously found only with kings.
The finding was one of seyffal
announced at the Eighth
International Congress
Egyptologists, a weeklong confer
ence that ends Monday and has
drawn some 1,500 archaeologists to
Cairo.
The French team, led by Jean
Leclant, uncovered the foundation
stones March 25 in Sakkara, an
ancient royal cemetery about 20
miles south of Cairo. The pyramid
belonged to Queen Ankh-sn-Pepi,
the wife of King Pepi I.
The archaeologists dug into the
queen’s burial chamber and found a
stone bearing pyramid texts, or spe
cial prayers to protect the dead and
ensure sustenance in the afterlife.
Until this discovery, such texts had
been located only in the pyramids of
kings. It is not yet known why they
were in the queen’s burial chamber.
“Who knows what else they may
find?” said Gaballa Ali Gaballa,
head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of
Antiquities. The team will work at
the site, now one of the country’s
largest, until the end of May.
In another discovery, Egyptian
archaeologists said they found a
ii It may be intact, andUntsideJhere is
likely a wooden sarcophagus and^
maybe even a mummyJWe wM start
excavating next week ” ^3? ^
^ ^ ZahiHawass
> Egyptian archaeologist
painted tomb in the Western Desert
from a 600 B.C. culture that export
ed wine to the Nile valley.
Leading Egyptian archaeologist
Zahi Hawass, who is chairing the
congress, said that through a hole in
a wall of the tomb, he saw a burial
chamber containing a stone coffin.
The coffin was roughly 13 feet by
seven feet.
“It may be intact, and inside
there is likely a wooden sarcophagus
and maybe even a mummy,” Hawass
said Sunday. “We will start excavat
ing next week.”
The tomb is in the so-called
Valley of the Golden Mummies in
the Bahariya oasis village of Bawiti,
215 miles southwest of Cairo.
Archeologists made the discovery
while re-excavating three similar
tombs that previously had been
found in the village, Hawass said.
Ten houses built above the fourth
tomb were removed, and Hawass
said the government will relocate the
homes and compensate the families.
Bahariya oasis made headlines
last year when 105 mummies were
found during the excavation of a vast
cemetery of Greco-Roman tombs.
In a third discovery announced at
the conference, a joint expedition of
Egyptian and French archaeologists
said they found two additional
chambers and a corridor in the col
lapsed pyramid of Maidum. Those
ruins, some 56 miles south of Cairo,
date to about 2600 B.C.
Antiquities chief Gaballa said
the new rooms have so far been seen
only through an endoscope, a 33
yard-long flexible tube that was
inserted through the joints in the
stones.
p
He said the purpose of the rooms
is not yet known, but they may have
been built to lessen the weight on the
burial chambers below.