MCKINLEY PARK — A neighborhood flag shop has stopped selling Confederate battle flags — because its manufacturers have stopped making them.
Mike Olson, owner of Advertising Flag Co. at 3801 S. Ashland Ave., said the three companies that produce some of his stock stopped making the Confederate flag after last week’s gruesome murders at a black church in Charleston, S.C.
After the arrest of 21-year-old Dylann Roof — the man charged in the nine murders at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston — photos of him posing with the flag surfaced online. The images sparked a nationwide debate about the flag's place in society and prompted the country's largest flag makers to halt production on the design.
While some say the flag serves as a memorial to Southerners killed during America's Civil War, the Confederate battle flag has also been a popular prop used by white supremacists.
Olson, who removed the flag from his shop’s website, had to refund many customers who ordered the flag from around the country.
He said it’s been a “stressful” time.
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