COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former state representative Bill Cotty, a champion for public education who helped bring the Confederate flag off the State House dome, died Saturday at the age of 69.

Mr. Cotty died at home in Columbia after battling lung cancer, his wife, Amelia, said.

Mr. Cotty helped develop the 2000 compromise that moved the Confederate flag from the dome to a 30-foot pole beside a monument to Confederate soldiers. It was a move he had advocated since his 1994 election as a way to promote racial unity.

‘‘I can’t believe this isn’t the right time for us to say to the state, nation and the rest of the world that South Carolina can see the bigger picture, that we need to respect each other and come together,’’ he said in 1995, when he voted against a bill keeping the flag on the dome. Only one other Republican voted with him.

He defied the GOP majority again in 1997, when he supported a proposal to move the flag and voted against creating Confederate flag license plates for Sons of Confederate Veterans members.

In 2000, he was instrumental in pushing the compromise through the House.