NAACP urged automaker to keep plant out of S.C.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - DaimlerChrysler denies a discouraging letter from the NAACP played a role in its decision to choose Georgia over South Carolina as the possible location of a van plant. <br> <br> The German automaker said it received a letter from the civil rights group urging the company not to invest in South Carolina because of the campaign against the Confederate flag. <br> <br> But Othmar Stein, the company&#39;s chief spokesman for commercial vehicles in Stuttgart, insisted it was not a factor in the decision to choose a town near Savannah, Ga., as the potential site of a $754 million, 3,300-employee cargo van plant. <br> <br> ``That is so ludicrous,&#39;&#39; Stein said. ``I don&#39;t believe that played any role whatsoever. This is a business decision.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> James Gallman, president of the South Carolina branch of the NAACP, said he asked the group&#39;s national office to write DaimlerChrysler urging it not to build a plant near Summerville because of the group&#39;s boycott of the state over the flag issue. <br> <br> Gallman said Tuesday he would do the same with other major industrial prospects, extending the group&#39;s campaign against the Confederate flag to a new economic front. <br> <br> ``Our request was they not come into South Carolina and subject their minority employees to the kind of blatant racism and poor race relations we have in South Carolina,&#39;&#39; Gallman said. <br> <br> Georgia Gov. Roy E. Barnes says DaimlerChrysler discussed the Confederate flag in talks about where to locate the plant, but South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges&#39; office said the topic never came up. <br> <br> ``Gov. Barnes is using that for political hay in his race in Georgia,&#39;&#39; said Jim Morris, the South Carolina Commerce Department&#39;s chief of staff. ``To suggest we&#39;ve done the right thing in Georgia, they are still screwing up in South Carolina, it&#39;s just not true.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People launched a tourism boycott of South Carolina in 2000 to force removal of the flag from atop the Statehouse. The boycott continued after the Confederate flag was moved from the Statehouse dome to a pole on the Capitol grounds. <br> <br> Georgia legislators changed that state&#39;s flag in January 2001 at Barnes&#39; urging, avoiding an economic boycott threatened by the NAACP. The new flag replaced the Confederate emblem, added in 1956 with small depictions of the state&#39;s five previous flags, including the one with the Confederate emblem.

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