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Confederate flag merchandise no longer sold at state parks; move follows

The Indiana State Fair is “strongly discouraging” vendors from displaying or selling items in support of the Confederate flag. She says vendor contracts contain language that would allow the fair to prohibit the sale of such material.

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The Kentucky Department of Parks will no longer sell Confederate battle flags or merchandise featuring the flag at park gift shops, officials announced today.

The Indiana State Fair is welcoming to all and does not support any offensive merchandise or behavior from any of our vendors.

The Department says the park policy is modeled after one recently by the National Park Service after the church shootings.

Educational materials such as books and DVDs that feature the flag in a historical context may still be sold at gift shops.

Kentucky’s new policy is a result of last months shootings in South Carolina.

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The debates have evoked Kentucky’s complicated racial history as a state that never officially joined the Confederacy but did host a shadow Confederate government and supplied many soldiers for the South during the Civil War. Meanwhile, the state Historic Properties Advisory Commission is slated to reexamine the placement of a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis in the Capitol Rotunda on August 5. The fair made the request in a letter sent to vendors this week, WRTV (http://bit.ly/1Mqzd9Z) reported.

No Confederate flag items at Ind., Ky. state fairs - Courier Press