This morning, activist Bree Newsome climbed up the flagpole on South Carolina’s capitol grounds and removed the Confederate flag. She said in a statement, “We removed the flag today because we can’t wait any longer. We can’t continue like this another day. It’s time for a new chapter where we are sincere about dismantling white supremacy and building toward true racial justice and equality.”

Newsome, 30, was arrested and the flag was restored. Earlier this week, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called for the flag to be removed from all state buildings, “This flag, while an integral part of our past, does not represent the future of our great state.”

Last week, nine black members of the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston were murdered, allegedly by Dylann Roof, a young white man whose apparent racist manifesto was accompanied by photos of him with the Confederate flag and the Rhodesian flag.

Here’s video of the flag removal, as well as Tweets:

James Ian Tyson, 30, was also arrested. From the Post and Courier:

Sherri Iacobelli, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said in a separate news release an officer patrolling the Statehouse grounds asked a woman who was wearing climbing gear, to get off the flag pole. After she refused, the woman unhooked the flag and was arrested when she climbed down. The flag was replaced within the hour.

Tyson was inside the wrought iron fence helping Newsome, Iacobelli said. Both are charged with defacing a monument. They were taken to the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.

A pro-battle flag rally was scheduled to start at 10 a.m., on the Statehouse grounds.

During his moving eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed in the shooting, President Obama said:

For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But as people from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, now acknowledge — including Governor Haley, whose recent eloquence on the subject is worthy of praise — — as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation. We see that now.

Removing the flag from this state’s capitol would not be an act of political correctness; it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers. It would simply be an acknowledgment that the cause for which they fought — the cause of slavery — was wrong — the imposition of Jim Crow after the Civil War, the resistance to civil rights for all people was wrong. It would be one step in an honest accounting of America’s history; a modest but meaningful balm for so many unhealed wounds. It would be an expression of the amazing changes that have transformed this state and this country for the better, because of the work of so many people of goodwill, people of all races striving to form a more perfect union. By taking down that flag, we express God’s grace.