On the Senate floor Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the recent Charleston church killings and called on the people of South Carolina to take down the Confederate flag:

"Mr President, I want to take this opportunity to send my condolences to the families of those who were murdered in Charleston, SC on Wednesday evening, and to the entire city of Charleston.

It is hard to understand how someone could walk into a church, be welcomed into a prayer meeting, and then take out a gun and slaughter 9 people who were in the process of discussing the bible. Hard to believe. But that is what happened.

Mr. President, in the last 60 years this country has made significant progress on civil rights. 60 years ago, parts of our country were built on an apartheid-type system: segregated housing, segregated schools, segregated restaurants, segregated transportation, segregated water fountains and an entire segregated way of life. Perhaps most significantly African Americans in a number of southern states were denied the right to vote and were unable to participate in the Democratic Process.

Today, we have a right to be proud of the significant changes that have taken place in our country, and the many advances that have been made in civil rights and in the creation of a less discriminatory society. We should be proud that in 2008 this country surprised the world by overcoming its racist history and electing our first African American president and then re-electing him four years later with a strong majority. You may like Barak Obama and I do, you may dislike Barak Obama and many Americans have that view. But it is no small thing that this country was able to judge a candidate by his ideas and character and not the color of his skin.

But clearly, while we have made significant progress, the events of last week remind us how far we yet have to go in order to create a non-racist society.

Mr. President, I am not the governor of South Carolina, I am not in the South Carolina legislature and I do not live in South Carolina. But I do believe that the time is long overdue for the people of South Carolina to remove the Confederate flag from the state house grounds in Columbia.

That flag is a relic of our nation’s stained racial history. It should come down. If any good can come of this terrible tragedy in Charleston, it is that the people of South Carolina now have the opportunity to finally turn a page on our past. Frankly, the Confederate flag does not belong on state house grounds. It belongs in a museum.

Mr. President, let me also express to you my deep concern about the growth of extremist groups in this country, who are motivated by hatred – by hatred of African Americans, by hatred of immigrants, by hatred of Jews, by hatred of Muslims, and anyone else who is not exactly like them. Mr. President, sadly, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are some 784 active hate groups in the united States. And the number of those groups are growing. Let me express my agreement with NAACP President Cornell William Brooks that “we need vigorous prosecution and vigorous investigation of these hate groups and the resources to do so.”

Mr. President, about 50 years ago as a student at the University of Chicago, I was arrested in the civil rights demonstration to end segregated schools. I was also involved in helping to end segregated housing in Chicago. Mr. President, let me end by reminding you of those great words in the American Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the persuit of happiness.” Mr. President, that is the dream of America and that is the goal that we must strive towards. The tragedy in Charleston reminds us all how far we still have to go."