gary_burgess.jpgCOLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – A black Republican candidate for South Carolina schools superintendent wants the NAACP to end its boycott of the state over the flying of the Confederate flag on the Statehouse grounds.

Gary Burgess, a member of the Anderson County School Board, will officially make his request to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Saturday at the African-American Memorial, also on the Statehouse grounds.

In a statement released in advance, Burgess says the boycott has already achieved its aim when, in 2000, the flag was removed from the Statehouse dome.

Since then, the flag has flown at the Confederate monument. 

Burgess also says the boycott is hurting the education of black students in South Carolina because the national NAACP refuses to come to the state to help.