The Republican governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, on Monday called for the removal of the controversial Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol, after last week's deadly shooting at a black church in Charleston.

"Today we are here in a moment of unity in our state, without ill will, to say it's time to move the flag from the capitol grounds," Haley told a press conference, flanked by political leaders from both parties.

"One hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War, the time has come," she said, adding the wartime battle flag -- seen by some as a symbol of lingering racist sentiment in the American South -- "causes pain for so many."