KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Confederate flag that has hung in a saloon and dance hall on the Platte County Fairgrounds since 1963 will not be displayed during this week’s festivities, but no final decision on the banner’s future has been made, board members said.
The flag was taken down Wednesday after questions were raised about its hanging in the Dirty Shame Saloon on the fairgrounds, which is on private property near Platte City. The flag has become a flash point elsewhere in the country since nine black people were killed last month at a church in Charleston, S.C. The suspect, who is white, was shown in photographs waving Confederate flags.
Judy Davis, vice president of the fair board, said most board members didn’t even realize the flag was hanging as saloon-stage background, which Davis said “was not a place of honor.”
The flag’s future will be decided after the fair’s annual stockholders meeting in the fall, board President Gary Fleming Jr. told The Kansas City Star on Wednesday. Fleming did not immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press on Thursday. An email to the fair board also was not answered.
The fair, which calls itself the oldest continuously operating fair west of the Mississippi River, is a not-for-profit organization operated entirely by volunteers. It is run by about 100 stockholders, including 15 board members, and operates on fair proceeds and sponsorships, with no financial help from any government entity.
The Platte County Fair began in 1858. It was suspended in 1861 and 1862 during the Civil War, after Platte City was burned to the ground by Union soldiers in December 1861 and many men in the county were killed, according to a fair history on the organization’s website. The fair resumed in 1863 and has operated since then.