A pub manager was horrified to find she had been flying the American flag associated with white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in her north Norfolk beer garden.
A mortified Niki Zambo pledged to take down the Confederate Flag fluttering outside The Ship Inn, Mundesley, after discovering its controversial history.
A Mundesley resident, who did not want to be identified, said: 'I'm shocked to see it flown over a pub in Norfolk...'
But Ms Zambo said she had acted in innocent ignorance. A regular customer who had returned from a re-enactment holiday in America had brought the flag in as a present for the pub.
'I just thought it was something American. I don't think he realised what it meant either,' she said.
The flag flew over the cliff-edge beer garden from Thursday until yesterday afternoon when Ms Zambo was alerted to its meaning by two customers.
'My boyfriend went and looked it up on Google and we saw all these horrible pictures,' she said.
'I'm quite embarrassed. We do apologise if we have caused offence.'
The Confederate Flag was widely used during the American Civil War (1861-1865) to represent the southern slave states which made up the confederacy.
It was revived during the last century by groups including the KKK which believes in white nationalism and is anti-immigration.
In the past KKK members, wearing distinctive pointed hats which covered their faces, and white robes, carried out brutal acts of torture, including many lynchings of black people in the US.
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