Goldenvoice has quietly instituted a brand new rule banning Accomplice flags at this yr’s Stagecoach, based on the Normal Resort Guidelines web page on the competition’s official web site. The change was first noticed by Palm Springs’ Desert Solar.
The rule bans “divisive symbols, together with, with out limitation, Accomplice flags and racially disparaging or different inappropriate imagery/public shows” on Stagecoach’s campground, referred to as the “The Resort.”
Goldenvoice declined to remark when Billboard reached out in regards to the ban.
Stagecoach attendees have beforehand complained in on-line boards in regards to the show of Accomplice flags on the competition. One among them, Gigi Mitchell, began a Change.org petition in 2020 calling for a ban, although it garnered simply 57 signatures.
The Accomplice flag has lengthy had a presence at nation music occasions, although modern-day stars together with Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton and Luke Combs have extra just lately been vital in regards to the show of the racist image at live shows. Guyton, considered one of solely a handful of Black performers to seek out success in nation music, has recalled “singing in entrance of Accomplice flags” at live shows whereas on tour. “That completely impressed [my song] ‘Black Like Me,’” mentioned Guyton, who scored a Grammy nod for greatest nation solo efficiency for the 2020 monitor, marking the primary nomination for a Black feminine solo artist within the class.
Throughout a digital panel on inclusivity on the annual Nation Radio Seminar in February 2021, Morris slammed the show of Accomplice flags at nation music festivals. “I don’t wish to play these festivals anymore,” she mentioned on the time. “For those who have been a Black particular person, would you ever really feel like going to a present with these flying within the car parking zone? No. I really feel like probably the most highly effective factor as artists in our place proper now could be to make these calls for of enormous organizations, festivals, promoters, whatnot. That’s one of many issues we are able to do, is say, ‘No, I’m not doing this. Eliminate them.’”
Throughout the identical panel, Combs apologized for photographs that had just lately surfaced of him posing with the Accomplice flag. Claiming the photographs have been seven or eight years outdated, Combs went on to say, “I believe as a youthful man, that was a picture I related to imply one thing else, and as I’ve grown in my time as an artist and because the world has modified drastically within the final 5 to seven years, you recognize, I’m now conscious of how painful that picture will be to another person. … I might by no means wish to be related to one thing that brings a lot harm to another person.”
The Accomplice flag – which was brandished on the battlefield by Accomplice troops throughout the Civil Battle however was by no means the official army or authorities image of the Confederacy – turned a logo of racist hate for white supremacist teams beginning within the post-Reconstruction interval. In 1948, the flag was adopted by the pro-segregation “Dixiecrat” political celebration, which was based in resistance to civil rights reforms ushered in by then-president Harry Truman.
