Recent uproar over the Confederate flag has caused the world’s largest amusement park company to remove the emblem from its Deep South locations.
Six Flags took down Confederate “Stars and Bars” flags at three theme parks Friday — Six Flags Over Texas, Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Six Flags Over Georgia — less than a week after a rally held in support of a statue commemorating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ended with a protester’s death in Charlottesville, Virginia.
[The “Stars and Bars”, not to be confused with the Confederate battle flag, was the first national flag of the Confederacy, featuring seven stars arranged in a circle on a blue field in the upper left of the banner, with three large “bars” of red, white and red on the right.]
“We always choose to focus on celebrating the things that unite us versus those that divide us,” Six Flags Entertainment Corp spokeswoman Sharon Parker said Friday after the flag was reported gone from the company’s flagship location in Arlington, Texas.
“As such, we have changed the flag displays in our park to feature American flags,” she said.
Indeed, the Confederate flag wasn’t the only casualty of the company’s decision.
“When Six Flags Over Texas was being planned during the Eisenhower administration, the founders settled on six themed areas and decided to use the historic fact of the flags of six nations that had flown over Texas as the basis of the themed areas,” said Ms. Parker: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America.
“Since that time, the park has moved on to incorporate many other themes. The Six Flags represent our brand across the world; no longer the themed areas of a park that opened in 1961,” she told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram.
The red, white and blue U.S. flag with 50 stars and 13 stripes had replaced the other five flags as of Friday, the Star-Telegram reported.
Confederate icons and emblems have come under increased scrutiny since 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed last Saturday while protesting the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville held in support of a Lee statue slated for removal.
The version of the Confederate flag flown at the three theme parks prior to Friday was not the “Rebel” battle flag widely associated with the Confederate Army, Ms. Parker noted, but the traditional “Stars and Bars” used by the Confederate States.
Six Flags has 20 locations in North America, but the Confederate flag flew only above its Texas and Georgia theme parks, NBC 5 reported.
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