Stagecoach Bans Confederate Flags on Festival Campgrounds

Goldenvoice has quietly instituted a new rule banning Confederate flags at this year’s Stagecoach, according to the General Resort Rules page on the festival’s official website. The change was first spotted by Palm Springs’ Desert Sun.

The rule prohibits “divisive symbol” on Stagecoach’s campground. It is also known as “The Resort .”

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Goldenvoice declined to comment when Billboard reached out about the ban.

Stagecoach participants have complained in forums HTML3_ about Confederate flags being displayed at the festival. One of them, Gigi Mitchell, started a Change.org petition in 2020 calling for a ban, though it garnered just 57 signatures.

The Confederate flag has long had a presence at country music events, though modern-day stars including Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton and Luke Combs have more recently been critical about the display of the racist symbol at concerts. Guyton, one of only a handful of Black performers to find success in country music, has recalled “singing in front of Confederate flags” at concerts while on tour. “That absolutely inspired [my song] ‘Black Like Me,'” said Guyton, who scored a Grammy nod for best country solo performance for the 2020 track, marking the first nomination for a Black female solo artist in the category.

During a virtual panel on inclusivity at the annual Country Radio Seminar in February 2021, Morris slammed the display of Confederate flags at country music festivals. She said that she didn’t want to be a part of those festivals. “If you were Black, would you ever feel like going on a show with people in the parking lot?” No. Artists in this position feel that the most powerful thing is to make demands of large festivals, promoters, and other organizations. One thing we can do is to say “No, I’m no doing this.” Get rid .'”

Combs also apologized for photos he had taken with the Confederate Flag during the panel. Combs claimed that the photos were seven to eight years old. He then said that he was sorry for the images. “I think that as a younger man, that image meant something different and that I have grown as an artist and as the world changes drastically over the past five to seven years, you’ll know that I’m now conscious of how painful that image can cause to someone else. … I wouldn’t want to be associated .”

with something that causes so much pain to someone else

The Confederate flag, which was carried on the battlefield by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, but was never used as a military or government symbol of Confederacy, became a symbol for racist hatred for white supremacist movements starting in the post-1989 period. In 1948, the flag was adopted by the pro-segregation “Dixiecrat” political party, which was founded in resistance to civil rights reforms ushered in by then-president Harry Truman.