Last year I did a lot of traveling through the south working on a book with my friend Dave Hoekstra about Soul Food and the Civil Rights Movement (Coming out in October). While driving through many southern states (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina) we were amazed by all of the confederate flags proudly flying.
This year, nine people were killed in a church in Charleston, SC, and the move started to ban the confederate flag. It is interesting to see how the music world treats the issue. In 1985, Tom Petty recorded an album, and produced a tour called Southern Accents. The backdrop for the tour was a giant Confederate flag. I thought it was interesting enough to shoot some stage wide shots with the flag.
This summer, after the movement to ban the Confederate flag from South Carolina, Tom wrote an article for Rolling Stone about the stage design.
The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South when I was a kid growing up in Gainesville, Florida. I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse and I often saw it in Western movies. I just honestly didn’t give it much thought, though I should have.
The Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.
It is interesting to see how the music world saw the issue.
The Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood called for a reclamation and celebration of Southern heritage, minus the Confederate battle flag and all it represents, in an insightful, biographical essay for The New York Times Magazine. He said:
“If we want to truly honor our Southern forefathers, we should do it by moving on from the symbols and prejudices of their time and building on the diversity, the art and the literary traditions we’ve inherited from them,” Hood wrote, adding: “It’s time to quit rallying around a flag that divides. And it is time for the South to — dare I say it? — rise up and show our nation what a beautiful place our region is, and what more it could become.”
Then there is Kid Rock:
The National Action Network’s Michigan chapter protested outside the Detroit Historical Museum, which houses a Kid Rock exhibit, demanding that the rocker stop displaying the Confederate flag, Deadline Detroit reports. In a statement to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Kid Rock relayed his message to those upset in his native Detroit: “Please tell the people who are protesting to kiss my ass/Ask me some questions.”