Activists Want Kid Rock to Abandon Confederate Flag

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Activists on Monday picketed the Detroit Historical Museum and demanded that hometown country-hip-hop-rock superstar Kid Rock stop using the Confederate flag in his performances.

Kid Rock – Robert James Ritchie, 44, in real life – has typically performed in front of the Confederate flag, as well as the American flag, at his concerts. It’s unclear if he has retired the Rebel battle flag for his current “First Kiss: Cheap Date Tour,” the Detroit Free Press reports.

Last month’s mass shooting inside a historic African-American church in South Carolina by an alleged white gunman shown in photos brandishing the Confederate flag has renewed long-standing debates over whether the flag represents the South’s history or flies as a snapping reminder of a time when African-Americans were bought and sold in the slave trade.

If Kid Rock refuses to retire the flag, the activists – who include the Rev. Charles Williams II, president of the Michigan Chapter of the National Action Network and pastor at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit – say they’ll ask the museum to cover the name of the Kid Rock Foundation, which funded the Kid Rock Music Lab. The interactive exhibits at the museum,, located at 501 Woodward Ave., trace Detroit’s music legacy, including gospel, Motown, techno, hip hop and other genres.

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The Confederate flag continues to fly outside the South Carolina capitol as lawmakers debate its removal, called for by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Days after the Charleston shooting, Haley said that for many South Carolina, “the flag is a deeply offensive symbol of a brutally racist past.”

Politicians, businesses, NASCAR and even the state of Virginia have removed or denounced the flag since Haley’s call. In his statement, Williams said that “this is a great time for Kid Rock to let it go also.”

Among those speaking at the rally was Sam Riddle, political director of the National Action Network, who said the Confederate flag is especially offensive in Detroit, where about 82 percent of residents are African-American.

“How in the hell can Kid Rock represent Detroit and wave that flag just generating millions and millions in ticket sales – a flag that represents genocide to most of Detroit?” Riddle asked, according to the Free Press.

Ted Nugent, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty Displayed Flag

Kid Rock, of course, isn’t alone in displaying the Confederate flag, according to USA Today.

The Detroit musician has in the past defended the flag as part of his tribute to the Jacksonville, FL, band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. In “All Summer Long,” Ritchie samples Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1974 hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” which was written in response to Neil Young’s sharp indictment of white supremacy and bigotry in “Southern Man.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd founding guitarist Gary Rossington hinted in a 2012 interview with CNN that it would stop using the flag on its sets. “... Through the years, people like the KKK and skinheads kinda kidnapped the Dixie or Southern flag from its tradition and the heritage of the soldiers,” Rossington said.

The decision didn’t go over well with fans. This June, Rossington said lead singer Johnny Van Zant “still puts the Dixie flag around his microphone for ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ and we put a whole flag over the piano.”

“We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” he told Radio.com. “But we’re still so proud to be Southern and to fly the Dixie flag.”

Other musicians, including another Detroit rocker, Ted Nugent, have distanced themselves from the flag. Last month, Nugent told WWJ/CBS Detroit that he wouldn’t raise the Confederate flag at his concerts or wear it on his clothing since the Charleston shooting, though he said he thought the issues surrounding the emblem were more about political correctness than anything else.

“Back when I would wear a Confederate flag on stage – along with an American flag and a POW flag and a ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag – I would be on tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd, and there wasn’t a racist thought to be found,” Nugent told WWJ.

“I have to acknowledge – I think we all do– there’s an awful lot of information, an awful lot of people out there that believe the stars and bars, the Confederate flag, represents something heroic and something worth standing up for,” he said.

Nugent was wearing Confederate-flag themed clothing as recently as February 2014, when he showed up at then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s inaugural ball wearing a Confederate flag shirt and Native American headdress and brandishing an AK rifle.

Country star Brad Paisley and rapper LL Cool J attempted a message of tolerance in their 2013 collaboration, “Accidental Racist.” The song goes, in part: “If you don’t judge my do-rag / I won’t judge your red flag and If you don’t judge my gold chains / I’ll forget the iron chains.”

Other musicians have used the Confederate flag in their performances but primarily when sentiments surrounding it were less toxic.

California-based Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed in front of the Confederate flag for the 1985 anthem, “Rebels,” a track on the “Southern Accents” album. But that was at a time when sentiments about the Confederate flag were less toxic.

During the same era, British rocker Billy Idol used a guitar featuring a Confederate flag image on its body for “Rebel Yell.”

Chevrolet Stands Behind Kid Rock

General Motors is taking some heat for Chevrolet’s sponsorship of the current Kid Rock tour, but said in a statement Monday that it has no intention of ending the affiliation.

“We are committed to our sponsorship of Kid Rock’s summer tour and are confident that he will provide his fans, many of whom are proud Chevrolet owners, with a spectacular concert experience that celebrates American Freedom,” the statement read.

This isn’t the first time Ritchie has been called on to jettison the Confederate flag.

When he received the lifetime achievement award in 2011 from the Detroit chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, some activists burned the Confederate flag in protest. At the event, Ritchie said the use of the flag has nothing to do with his feelings about African-Americans.

“I love America. I love Detroit, and I love black people,” he reportedly said at the time.

Detroit NAACP President Wendell Anthony defended Ritchie’s selection for the award. “We’re not lifting up the flag,” he said in 2011. “We’re lifting up a gentleman who has worked very hard to be a booster for Detroit.”

Tell Us:

• Should the Confederate flag be retired, or have we become too sensitive and politically correct?

Kid Rock’s fans have continued to fly the Confederate flag since the Charleston tragedy.

Several tailgaters outside of a Kid Rock concert in Hartford, CT, last month were flying the flag, one of them at half-staff out of respect for the nine people who were killed at the church, according to a report on WTNH-TV.

“I put it at half staff because they had to take it down for South Carolina,” concertgoer Dave Koss told the TV station. “It’s still part of our heritage, but we put it at half mast, and of course the American flag is on top.”

Kid Rock’s publicist did not immediately return calls from Patch.com and other news organizations seeking comment on Monday’s rally.

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Publicity photo via KidRock.com