Brittany Ann Byuarm Newsome Bass[1] (born May 13, 1985)[2] is an American filmmaker, activist and speaker from Charlotte, North Carolina. She is best known for her act of civil disobedience on June 27, 2015, when she was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds in the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting. The resulting publicity put pressure on state officials to remove the flag, and it was taken down permanently on July 10, 2015.
Newsome said that her experience as a black woman working in the horror and sci-fi film genres inspired her to become an activist. Speaking as part of a panel at Spelman College in 2014, she said: "The space that exists for many of us, as a young black girl, is so extremely limited so that you really can't go very far without being an activist, without being in defiance of something."[8]
On June 27, 2015, she was arrested for taking down the Confederate battle flag that was displayed on the grounds of the South Carolina State House[10][11]indirect action.[12][13] Newsome, aged 30,[14] while scaling the 30-foot (9.1 m) pole, was hailed by policemen who told her to get down. She responded: "In the name of Jesus, this flag has to come down. You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God. This flag comes down today."[15][16][17] As she lowered the flag and descended into the arms of awaiting policemen, she announced she was prepared to be arrested. Both Newsome and a man who police said was helping her, James Ian Tyson, were arrested. Onlookers applauded Newsome's efforts as she was handcuffed. As she was led away, she recited the 23rd Psalm from the Bible. The flag was raised again 45 minutes later.[18]
Both activists were charged with defacing monuments on capitol grounds,[19]amisdemeanor punishable by a fine or a maximum jail sentence of three years,[19][20] and taken to Richland County Jail.[21] A judge set a $3,000 bond for each.[21]
Newsome's act of civil disobedience made international headlines and television news. By late afternoon, a crowdfunding campaign had raised over $60,000 for her bail. Filmmaker Michael Moore offered on Twitter to pay her bail and legal fees.[22]Todd Rutherford, the minority leader of the state House of Representatives, offered to represent Newsome in court.[18]NAACP chapter president Reverend William Barber II applauded Newsome's action, comparing it to those of Rosa Parks and other icons of the Civil Rights Movement.[23] Colette Gaiter, an associate professor of art and social change at the University of Delaware, whose writing was republished by Time magazine, called the act "a significant piece of socially engaged performance art".[24] After her release, Newsome gave numerous magazine interviews and appeared on talk shows such as Democracy Now! and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore.[25][26] She also appears in the award-winning 2015 documentary, Bars4justice.[27]
Newsome's actions were criticized by several South Carolina legislators who said that they were in favor of the flag's removal, but illegal actions like Newsome's could hurt their goal to have the flag permanently removed.[28] Calls for the flag's removal had been on the increase since the murder of nine people in the Charleston church shooting of June 17.[11]
Several days after her arrest, Newsome released a statement to Blue Nation Review revealing what propelled her to act.
I realized that now is the time for true courage the morning after the Charleston Massacre shook me to the core of my being. I couldn't sleep. I sat awake in the dead of night. All the ghosts of the past seemed to be rising.
But this was neither a scene from a movie nor was it the past. A white man had just entered a black church and massacred people as they prayed. He had assassinated a civil rights leader. This was not a page in a textbook I was reading nor an inscription on a monument I was visiting.[29]
A vote on the presence of the flag took place among South Carolina's House of Representatives on July 9, which resulted in the final removal of the flag the following Friday.[30] The charges against Newsome and Tyson were later dropped.[31]
As a presidential candidate speaking at a Martin Luther King Day 2016 celebration in Charleston, Hillary Clinton credited Newsome for taking the matter into her own hands by "shimmying up that flagpole" as a step in the process. "Every year, you've gathered right here and said that that symbol of division and racism went against everything Dr. King stood for. We couldn't celebrate him and the Confederacy, we had to choose. And South Carolina finally made the right choice."[32]
In February 2016, Newsome told Ebony magazine that she had been motivated in part by her ancestors having been enslaved and subjected to racial terrorism in South Carolina.[33]