FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. — A Tanglewood pool-goer didn’t notice until taking a closer look that the design on her wristband wasn’t the American flag, the Winston-Salem Journal reports. It was the Confederate battle flag.
Forsyth County parks and recreation officials said that on Monday they disposed of wristbands with a Confederate battle flag design after looking at a complaint from Sage Magnes, a former Forsyth County resident who was visiting for the holiday.
Magness said she was “pretty mad because the Confederate flag is something I don’t have in my life.”
Magness complained on the county’s Facebook page. She got a response from someone with the county who at first said that, in the catalog the county ordered from, the wristbands “have a generic stars and stripes pattern” before seeing Magness’ photo of the wristbands. The county employee said the bands have been used for the past several years without generating any complaints.
Damon Sanders-Pratt, the deputy county manager of Forsyth, said Monday afternoon that a young staffer who ordered the wristbands mistakenly thought he was ordering a patriotic theme.
“The employee’s intention was to recognize the American flag and Independence Day, but they made an uninformed selection,” Sanders-Pratt said. “Again, the county made a mistake by using these wristbands, no matter what they were called, and apologizes to those who were offended.”