A privately run North Carolina pavilion on the National Mall briefly showed an X‑shaped Confederate battle flag on its video monitors during the Great American State Fair, touching off a swift political and corporate blowback. Governor Josh Stein’s office blasted the image as divisive, and one major sponsor, Mt. Olive Pickle Company, pulled out of the exhibit entirely. Organizers say the footage was stripped from the program while they dig into how it ended up there in the first place.
Video captured and removed
On June 26, Reuben Jones of Spectrum News filmed the pavilion’s interior screens, which showed multiple monitors displaying a split image that paired the current North Carolina state flag with a Confederate battle emblem. According to Spectrum News, booth lead Lorie Khatod said organizers "became aware of an unapproved image" and pulled the video that afternoon while staff reviewed the exhibit.
Sponsors pull out and state reacts
Mt. Olive Pickle Company said it did not know the Confederate image would appear and announced it was cutting ties with the pavilion. The company told WBTV that it "stands on values of human dignity, opportunity, and freedom." The fallout quickly migrated from the booth to Raleigh: North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein’s office condemned the display as divisive, saying it "does not reflect the North Carolina that we love" and urging organizers to "stop dishonoring the flag of North Carolina," according to The Washington Post.
Where the clip came from
Organizers say the controversial footage came from a 45‑minute YouTube documentary titled "North Carolina - The US Explained," produced by creator Carter Stacy, and that the portion with the Confederate image ran only for a few seconds. According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Spevco, one of the private sponsors of the booth, said it "did not create, produce, edit, approve or select this historical video to be shown," while Stacy later blamed an editing mistake, saying he "must've accidentally grabbed the wrong image."
Why the image was historically wrong
North Carolina did adopt a flag in 1861 that incorporated Confederate symbolism, but the authentic 1861 design featured two horizontal blue and white bars on the fly side, not the X‑shaped Confederate battle flag that showed up on the screens. That distinction is documented by NCpedia, a resource of the state Government & Heritage Library.
A cautionary tale about outsourced exhibits
The dustup has turned into a case study in what can go wrong when private groups build a "state" experience. Freedom 250 and fair organizers have said states retain editorial control of their pavilions, but when a state chooses not to fund a booth and private entities step in with content, oversight can become patchy, The Washington Post reports. Organizers say they are tightening review procedures for multimedia in the pavilion, although the political damage and the loss of a high-profile sponsor have already unfolded in public view.
For North Carolina the moment has become an awkward footnote to America’s 250th celebrations: the offending frame is gone, but the episode underscores how a few unvetted seconds of video can upend months of carefully staged messaging.
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