The Confederate flag was important to Dylann Storm Roof, the 21-year-old charged in the racist mass murderof nine African Americans in a historic black Charleston church this week.

His license plate displayed the rebel flag of the Civil War. He grew up in South Carolina, which proudly flies that battle flag at the state Capitol.

And Roof was true to the colors of the Stars and Bars. He is said to have believed in the inferiority of black people, who were employed mostly as slaves by South Carolina and other states in the South when they started a bloody revolution in 1861 to “protect their states rights” to enslave other human beings.

Although the Confederate states lost, they were never punished enough and this allowed white attitudes of racial superiority to flourish in the South, even today, 150 years after that war.

The flying of the flag is a purposeful affront not only to African Americans but also to humanity in general.

In that South Carolina will never willingly take down the flag, the time has come for opponents to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech and burn the Confederate flag — at the state Capitol in South Carolina, in front of the White House, in front of Fox News or maybe even outside the Grand Ol’ Opry.

More: Fight Racist Fire With Literal Fire: Burn Confederate Flags