FLINT, MI — An artist/protester has been arrested after taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina, and Flint-area filmmaker Michael Moore has offered to pay for her bail and legal fees.
According to NBC News, two activists were arrested Saturday morning after one removed the Confederate flag from a pole outside South Carolina's Statehouse in Columbia.
Reports say Brittany Ann Byuarium Newsome, of Raleigh, N.C., climbed the pole around 6:15 a.m. and unhooked the flag, according to a statement by the South Carolina Department of Public Safety Bureau of Protective Services. James Ian Tyson, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was inside the fence helping her. The flag was replaced with a new flag within an hour, according to the statement.
Newsome and Tyson were both arrested and charged with defacing a monument, and face a fine of up to $5,000 or three years in prison.
Michael Moore used his Twitter account to offer to pay Newsome's bail money and legal fees, and asked for her friends to let her know.
THE FLAG IS DOWN!! @BreeNewsome, AfricanAmerican woman, scales SC flagpole & takes Confederate flag down! WATCH NOW: http://t.co/ddYhMbvpvv
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) June 27, 2015
Friends of @BreeNewsome - I will pay her bail money or any legal fees she has. Please let her know this. #Charleston #TakeDownTheFlag
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) June 27, 2015
Twitter users have used the hashtag "#freebree" to show their support of Newsome, a writer and singer who is known as Bree.
There have been calls for the confederate flag to be removed after a white gunman killed nine black people at a Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The FBI is investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
Saturday's incident comes a day after the funeral for state senator Clementa C. Pinckney, who was killed in the shooting, and hours before a pro-confederate flag rally at the state capital.
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