COLUMBIA, S.C. - The state conference of the NAACP is expanding the focus of its annual King Day at the Dome rally to include providing affordable health care and extending the Voting Rights Act.

Removing the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds will continue to be one of the goals of the annual rally and march on Jan. 16, said Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The civil rights group has had an economic boycott against the state in place since 1999. Randolph said the boycott will remain in effect until state officials remove the Confederate Flag.

NAACP officials discussed their plans at a news conference Tuesday in Columbia.

Other issues that the NAACP plans to address at the rally include talking about what the group says are disparities in the criminal justice system, education funding and economic development.

Randolph said the group distinguishes between the tourism industry, which it is targeting with its boycott, and the state's overall economic development. He praised groups like the NCAA, which have embraced the boycott by refusing to hold sports championships in the state.

But Randolph said the group's efforts to draw away tourism dollars have not diminished economic opportunities for blacks in South Carolina. He pointed to lingering differences between the salaries of blacks and whites in the state, and the awarding of state contracts to minority firms, which he said existed before the boycott went into effect.

"The disparities were as bad then as they are now," he said.

Last year, the group added education funding to the agenda for the annual march from Columbia's Zion Baptist Church to the Statehouse.

At that time, a decision was expected anytime on a lawsuit brought by several rural school districts challenging the state's education funding formula. Circuit Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr. recently told attorneys in the case that he should have a decision by year's end.

Dwight James, executive director of the state conference of the NAACP, said the group is holding meetings throughout the state to explain the goals for the rally and to clarify the group's position about key issues, such as the decision by state lawmakers to move the confederate flag from the Statehouse dome to the grounds of the complex.

"Some folks may be holding on to this myth about the compromise," James said. "It was moved to an even more prominent place, where everyone could see it."