Top Confederate Flag Maker Won't Make More Flags

Big retailers like Amazon, Sears, Walmart, and eBay aren't the only ones to have decided the time is nigh to get out of the Confederate flag business: Reuters reports that the flag companies themselves have decided to stop making and selling the controversial battle flag. "We hope that this decision will show our support for those affected by the recent events in Charleston and, in some small way, help to foster racial unity and tolerance in our country," one of the leading flag firms, Valley Forge Flag, said in a statement. The company says Confederate flags only make up a small fraction of the millions of flags it sells every year.

Retailers outside the US have also started ditching the flag: A spokeswoman for Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba tells Reuters that items featuring the emblem have been pulled as part of its policy to remove "listings of materials that are ethnically or racially offensive." But there are many small retailers still selling the flag, and some of them say demand has surged, with some customers looking for Confederate flags to line their yards with and others buying them to burn, the New York Times reports. The Southern Poverty Law Center, meanwhile, warns that extremist groups are trying to exploit the backlash against the flag by describing it as "cultural genocide," NBC reports. (More Confederate flag stories.)