![]() However, in Mississippi, voters chose not to change their flag, which contains an image of the Confederate flag in a corner.īarbara Junious, executive director of the Huntington Beach-based Orange County Learning Black History, said while the symbol is “insulting” when unveiled in modern times, it should not be covered up in historical re-enactments. The National Parks Service stopped selling the flags and related memorabilia.Ī number of national retailers, including Wal-Mart, also pulled Confederate merchandise from their shelves. At Fort Sumter, site of the opening battle of the Civil War, the Confederate flag also was taken down. In the wake of the shooting, South Carolina took down the rebel cross that had flown over the State Capitol for 54 years. The Confederate flag came into the spotlight again in June after Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist suspected in the shooting of nine congregants at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was shown in photos on social media holding up the rebel flag and burning the American flag. In battle, the red flag was actually square to save cloth. ![]() The red battle flag with the blue cross and white stars was never the official flag of the Confederacy, but it is the symbol most commonly associated with the South during the war. “To remove symbols wouldn’t be true to the historical narrative,” said Rivers, who has portrayed soldiers from both sides over the years. Re-enactors such as Rivers, who helps host the event, said to fail to portray the flag is to fail to be accurate. “It’s a minefield when you’re talking about a thing like this,” said Reed Settle, who plays a colonel commanding the Confederates at Huntington Beach. In Huntington Beach, re-enactors are keeping the flag, although they are hesitant to talk about the issue, saying they prefer not to muddle modern politics and 150-year-old history. ![]() ![]() This year, however, flying the symbol of the Confederacy carries some baggage.Īfter the killing of nine black parishioners in a South Carolina church in June, ongoing civil strife in a number of cities in response to police-involved shootings involving black men and debates in South Carolina and Mississippi about what flies above their state capitols, the Southern flag has been flying low.Ĭonfederate flags flew in a number of Fourth of July parades nationally, but a group of re-enactors in Pennsylvania portraying the 18th North Carolina Company pulled out of a parade after being asked not to display the flag. Confederate battle flags will fly above the smoke and simulated carnage as the 22nd annual Huntington Beach Civil War Days are played out in Central Park on Saturday and Sunday. ![]()
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