Barber, though, decided to do the exact opposite—he plans to begin manufacturing the Confederate flag and add it to the lineup on his Dixie Outfitters website, now that the “big boys” are out of the business.

“Most of them are only [selling Confederate flag merchandise] for monetary gain—they don’t understand the nuances of the flag in the way that those of us who were born and bred [in the South] do,” Barber told TIME from the company’s Odum, Ga. headquarters. “We’re glad to see ignorant people getting out of the business. Let those of us who understand it [sell] it.”

Dixie Outfitters—which Barber founded in 1997 as a subsidiary of his Barber & Company, with the slogan “Preserving Southern Heritage since 1861″—will manufacture its own Confederate flags and begin selling them in two to three weeks, Barber said.