Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, will remove all Confederate flag merchandise from its stores, CNN reported Monday evening.
Walmart.com currently carries the Confederate flag as well as attire featuring the flag’s design, such as T-shirts and belt buckles.
WNCN on Monday evening easily found a Confederate flag for sale in the “wind chimes and flags” section of the website, but it had been sold out already.
The move by the Arkansas-based retailer comes in the aftermath of 9 church-goers who were fatally gunned down in Charleston less than a week ago.
South Carolina. Gov. Nikki Haley announced in a Monday afternoon news conference that she supports removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.
“We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer. We have taken steps to remove all items promoting the confederate flag from our assortment — whether in our stores or on our web site,” Walmart spokesman Brian Nick told CNN.
“We have a process in place to help lead us to the right decisions when it comes to the merchandise we sell. Still, at times, items make their way into our assortment improperly — this is one of those instances.”
Walmart’s statement came in response to a CNN inquiry Monday. In addition to Walmart, CNN asked Amazon and eBay whether they would remove Confederate flag merchandise from their sites. Neither company responded to repeated requests for comment, CNN reported.