WASHINGTON — As states debate and make decisions about removing Confederate flags from state properties, the National Park Service has decided to remove Confederate battle flag items from bookstores and gift shops at national parks.
“All sales items in parks are evaluated based on educational value and their connection to the park. Any stand-alone depictions of Confederate flags have no place in park stores,” Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said in a statement released Thursday.
Jarvis says that the racially motivated murders at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, last week began a national discussion, and that one of the companies that manage some national park stores began to remove Confederate flag merchandise.
“I’ve asked other cooperating associations, partners and concession providers to withdraw from sale items that solely depict a Confederate flag,” Jarvis says.
Books, exhibits, reenactments and other programs and media that depict the Confederate flag in the context of educational material about the Civil War will still be sold – items will be pulled that depict the flag by itself, or from which it can be detached.
Jarvis says superintendents and program managers will make decisions on which items will remain.
