Push for S.C. hate crime bill continues after cross-burning

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) - Activists continued calling on state leaders to a hate crime bill amid multiple investigations into a Conway-area cross burning.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held a news conference Wednesday to discuss a Thanksgiving weekend cross-burning that left a Conway-area Black couple troubled.

Cross-burning has long been seen as a hate symbol in the South, popularized by the Ku Klux Klan.

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Dr. Kenneth Floyd, the interim president of the NAA’s Conway chapter, said he thought cross-burning was something that was left in the past.

“Now, this stuff that we put to death many years ago, surface[s] one more time,” Floyd said. “Stuff that we thought that we had buried. But we must have buried it alive.”

Floyd and others who spoke at the conference called for leaders to hate crime legislation as South Carolina remains one of two states without such laws.

“We asked the General Assembly not to be the last this time,” Marvin Neal, president of Georgetown’s NAA branch, said. “Even though you’re 49, do not be the last.”

Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson gave his for the hate crime bill as well while lamenting he does not believe the incident reflects the local community.

“This is not our community,” Thompson said. “This is not the community of Conway, the community of Horry County, and I feel like the state of South Carolina.”

The bill, named after Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney, one of the nine victims of the 2015 racist killing of nine churchgoers in Charleston, has stalled in the Senate after ing in the House for the last three years.

With no hate crime bill in place, the NAA is encouraging people to reach out to the FBI if they think they are victims of a hate crime.

The FBI is one of the agencies investigating the cross-burning and the neighbors accused of lighting the match, Worden Butler and Alexis Hartnett. The two are currently out on bond, facing a harassment charge.

The Black couple that filmed the cross burning as it faced their home, Shawn and Monica Williams, were not at Wednesday’s news conference. However, the NAA read a statement from the couple.

“Thanks so much to all of the world for ing us,” Neal said, reading the statement. “We’re trying to process the horrific event, a cross burning. Imagine burning a cross in 2023. So hurt, so sad and such a setback in time. We are still hurting and drained mentally and emotionally from this happening to us. Our families pray optimistically for justice with hope that the hate crime will . Lastly, the bill will be a benefit to many. We hope and pray that understanding of acceptance will come [from] all this and realize that hate has no place in South Carolina. Thank you, and please keep sharing our story. Peace, love and blessings to all.”

The South Carolina General Assembly is set to meet again in January.

NAA task force member Cedric Blain-Spain said ing the bill should be the assembly’s first order of business.

“Conway, we are better than this. We are better than this,” Blain-Spain said. “What affects the Williams family directly affects us indirectly.”

A few cities in South Carolina have ed hate crime ordinances or resolutions. However, Conway is not one of them.

Conway Mayor Barbara Blain-Bellamy, who spoke at the conference, previously told WMBF News that there’s nothing the city can do, and it’s up to the state.

Horry County Police Chief Joe Hill and South Carolina NAA President Brenda Murphy also spoke at the news conference.