A Black Lives Matter protester jumped a barrier to take down a Confederate flag

The Confederate Flag, used by Confederate States in the American Civil War, thereby linking it to those who supported slavery 150 years ago, has a bad history.

It's also most prominently featured on the news when wielded by white supremacists who perpetrate racist mass shootings.

You can see why it has a bad rep.

John Oliver perhaps put it best when he said there was no place for the flag in modern America, except for...

... On T-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people in the world.

A protest outside a lecture on Wednesday, in Charleston, South Carolina, saw members of the secessionist party demonstrate against Brittany "Bree" Newsome's talk.

She is famous as an activist for removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina's statehouse in the days following the Charleston shooting by white supremacist Dylan Roof.

She was arrested and charged with defacing state property. Newsome says the charges have since been dropped and the case has been dismissed.

James Bessinger, a member of the secessionist party, told Live 5 News that the flags which they brought with them to protest, were not racist:

It’s a soldier’s flag and South Carolina lost a quarter of our male population, that’s what that flag represents to us.

Black, White, Hispanic, all colours served under that flag so to make it a racial thing is ingenuous.

We think he means 'disingenuous'.

Anyway, Muhiyidin Moye, the leader of Black Lives Matter in Charleston, jumped a barrier to the protest in an attempt to grab the Confederate flag.

It was caught on a live news broadcast.

We're sure the people saying that the removal of a Confederate flag "legitimises vandalism and criminal violence" are equally as vocal about the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery by neo-Nazis, and are equally as concerned about the rise in hate crime against ethnic minorities, women, and LGBT people in the wake of Donald Trump's election to public office.

I mean, all lives matter, right?

HT Live 5 News

More: Walmart is no longer selling the Confederate flag and some people are freaking out