A congresswoman called on Mayor Eric Garcetti and a city councilman Friday to stop allowing the sale of Confederate flag souvenirs at the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum in Wilmington, but the museum’s director said she had already taken them off the shelves days before.
“It is important and understandable to have Confederate flags displayed in a museum for educational purposes,” said Rep. Janice Hahn, D-San Pedro. “However … I think it is appropriate and right that we no longer sell Confederate battle flag memorabilia in our museum in the city of Los Angeles.”
But the museum’s director, Susan Ogle, told the Daily Breeze today she had already stopped selling the Confederate flags in the gift shop, prior to Hahn making her statement, and she never got notice from Hahn herself about her concerns.
The museum displays the history of the Drum Barracks, which Hahn said was the headquarters of the Union Army for Southern California and the Arizona Territory.
In a letter to Garcetti and Councilman Joe Buscaino, Hahn cited the fatal shooting of nine people at Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina.
“The killer — motivated by racism — had pictures of himself with the Confederate battle flag,” she wrote. “As a nation, we had to confront the meaning of this flag, which is a symbol of racism, hatred and oppression.”
Hahn’s request comes a day after South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed off on taking down the Confederate battle flag at the state capitol.
Hahn said the House of Representatives this week approved measures to “remove the Confederate battle flag and refrain from selling it at our National Parks and federal cemeteries.”
“I have also joined my colleagues in a new effort to remove the Confederate battle flag from places in the U.S. Capitol,” she wrote.
— City News Service