Just five years after the Charleston massacre, the consensus has shifted in the wake of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality following George Floyd’s death.
In the weeks after a white supremacist murdered nine black people at a Charleston church in 2015, NASCAR asked its fans to keep Confederate flags away from the racetrack. The flag had come down at the statehouse in South Carolina, and now Dale Earnhardt Jr. was calling on racing fans to follow suit.
“It does nothing for anybody to be there flying, so I don’t see any reason,” the star driver said at the time. “It belongs in the history books and that’s about it.”
But it soon became clear that NASCAR’s request had gone nowhere. Confederate flags were still flying high on campers in the infield and at nearby campsites, especially at racetracks in the South. Despite pleas from officials, there would be fans in the crowd who denied it was a sign of racial oppression.
So NASCAR’s announcement Tuesday that it was banning the flag outright marks a stunning step for the racing world. The story of how the sport came up short just five years ago shows how much the consensus has shifted in the wake of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality following George Floyd’s death last month.
Since the sport’s early days on hardscrabble Southern dirt tracks, stock-car racing has been irreversibly linked to the Confederate flag. Nowhere was that connection more visible than the speedway in Darlington, S. C., a historic track where the segregationist politician Strom Thurmond once cut the ribbon.
For decades, the Dixie flag was used as the logo on Darlington’s poster merchandise, including for a spring race known as the Rebel 300. “Dixie” played over the speakers ahead of starting ceremonies, and a costumed rebel soldier joined the winning driver to celebrate in Victory Lane.
Then, in 2015, nine black churchgoers were killed in Charleston, a little more than two hours away.
