Demand for Confederate flags at Chris Ackerman’s Civil War memorabilia shop in Pennsylvania has surged since violence at a white nationalist rally in Virginia this month reignited the United States’ debate over race and the legacy of slavery.

The trend has been similar for other sellers of the Confederate battle flag, retailers report. But now that most major U.S. flag makers no longer produce it, given the controversy over the banner, much of the new demand is filled by imports from China and other countries.

“We need to get more flags,” Ackerman recalled saying following the first order after the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. His Gettysburg Regimental Quartermaster store, near a historic Civil War battlefield, and website sells $400 handmade flags to re-enactors and $40 ones shipped from China.

Ackerman said demand had jumped fourfold to as many as 40 sales a week, an increase he likened to the surge in gun sales that occur whenever new gun control measures are weighed or feared... [color="Navy"]More

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BELOW: Blanca Hernandez sews stars on a Confederate Battle Flag in the Alabama Flag & Banner shop in Huntsville, Alabama, U.S., August 24, 2017.

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