Bob CollinsIn Erhard, MN, local @NAPAKnowHow store flies Confederate flag on its July 4th float. @NAACP @GRACC @BruceRoller pic.twitter.com/o9D3hqoxLO
— Alan Headbloom (@headbloom) July 6, 2015
Oh, hey, another Confederate flag controversy in outstate Minnesota.
This time it’s Erhard, Minn., south of Pelican Rapids, Minn., where someone thought a Confederate flag in the Fourth of July parade was the perfect way to promote the local NAPA auto parts store, the Fargo Forum reports today.
“That was his personal vehicle and his doing,” Mark Farnam, who runs the Pelican Rapids store, said of the employee. “I’m disappointed that he chose to do that.”
In the 15 years he has attended the parade, it was the first time he saw the Confederate flag make an appearance, he said. He said it was particularly “stupid” to fly the Confederate flag in light of the debate that has recently exploded over it.
The killings of black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., on June 17 prompted debates about removing the Confederate flag from public places. Photos of the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who is white, show him posing with the Confederate flag.
“I just found it so appalling,” said Bowhall, 64. Others around him were “livid,” he added.
Another parade-goer, 29-year-old Ryan Ruud, was surprised to see the flag and took a picture, which he posted on social media.
“I was just disappointed because regardless of current events, it seems like it’s not the most logical thing to fly on Independence Day,” he said. “You would really fly the flag of a group that was trying to split” the nation?
He at least got the proper display of the flag correct. Of the three flags on the “float,” the American flag was displayed highest.
