State Historic Site Flag Policy

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which administers historic sites across the state, has not removed, nor does it have any plans to remove, any historical flags, such as Confederate flags, from its historic sites. They continue to be flown in public spaces at those locations. However, a 2015 policy regarding the display of flags at our state historic sites requires that any historical flags associated with a particular site be located in interpreted spaces separate from the flags of the United States and North Carolina, which are displayed either in front of visitors centers or at the site entrance. 

The policy, which was adopted by the NC Historical Commission in Oct. 2015, states that “historical flags should be displayed on one or more permanent poles in an appropriate historical context accompanied by interpretation.” In addition, the policy states that “In order to ensure a balanced interpretation, all of the primary historical flags associated with the period of interpretation should be included when possible.” Therefore, over time, some historical flags will be moved to other visible, accessible and interpretable locations on site.
 

The full policy is available here: /documents/flag-policy-final/download