A Vancouver specialty flag shop has announced that after intense public pressure, it will no longer make or sell the Confederate flag.
The move follows a similar decision by Walmart. Display of the flag, especially on South Carolina’s capitol buildings grounds, has come under scrutiny following a racially-motivated shooting at a historic black church in Charleston on June 17.
The Flag Shop owner Susan Braverman said her company has always sold and manufactured the Confederate flag in small quantities, which became especially popular after the release of the 2005 movie Dukes of Hazard.
Braverman said her social media manager, who is from Mississippi, initially urged her to drop the flag in the days following the shooting.
Amidst one of the busiest times in the year for the shop, Braverman put off making the decision. But after Walmart announced it would no longer sell the flag, Braverman said she began receiving emails and Facebook messages asking why her store was still selling the flag.
“I had always seen it as a historical flag,” Braverman said. “I knew some people liked it and some people didn’t.”
Once she started reading more about the calls to stop displaying the flag, which many see as “a symbol of hate and racism,” Braverman said, she made the decision to stop selling it.
Walmart announced it would no longer sell the Confederate flag June 22. Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, has called for the removal of the flag from the statehouse grounds.
@jenstden
