The Greater Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday said it will not hold a long-scheduled conference in Walton County next year due to “the county’s failure to remove a Confederate flag from its courthouse,” according to a press release.
The move follows a July 28 vote of the Walton County Commission to replace the Confederate battle flag outside the courthouse with an earlier flag symbolizing the Confederacy, the so-called “stars and bars.” The vote prompted calls by the NAACP for a boycott of Walton’s beaches and other tourist attractions, and the Tallahassee chamber agreed.
“By unanimous decision, our executive committee agreed today that our chamber will not hold its planned 2016 community conference in Walton County because of the divisive decision by the county commission there to continue to embrace a symbol of hatred at its public courthouse,” chamber Chairman Rick Moore said in a statement.
But he added it is too late to cancel this year’s conference, which is scheduled for next week at the Sandestin Hilton with 550 attendees. The chamber stressed its “strong disagreement and disappointment in the Walton County Commission’s vote that resulted in one Confederate flag replacing another at the county courthouse — instead of removing it altogether.”