The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NASCAR bans all displays of Confederate flag
Move comes after black driver Wallace calls for removal of symbol.
NASCAR announced Wednesday afternoon a ban on displays of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events and on NASCAR property, as the stock car series with deep ties to the South formally distanced itself from what for millions is a symbol of slavery and racism.
“The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry,” NASCAR said in a prepared statement. “Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”
As the nation grapples with social unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the pre
dominantly white field of NASCAR drivers united for a video promoting social change, and a black NASCAR official took a knee before Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway in what may have been a first for the series. Bubba Wallace, the only black driver on NASCAR’s top circuit, wore a black T-shirt with the words “I Can’t Breathe” at Sunday’s race, then seized the moment and issued his most compelling comments yet on the topic of race and racing: “My next step would be to get rid of all Confederate flags,” he told CNN. “No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race. So it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here.”
The move to ban Confederate flags was announced before Wednesday night’s race at Martinsville Speedway where Wallace, an Alabama native, was driving the famous No. 43 car for Richard Petty Motorsports with a new #BlackLivesMatter paint scheme. Wallace got a shoutout on Twitter from several athletes, including NBA star LeBron James, for using the paint scheme in the race.
“I think it’s going to speak volumes for what I stand for,”
Wallace said on a Twitter video this week. The message is simple for Wallace: “All lives will not matter until black lives matter.”
Wallace arrived in the sport hyped as a trailblazer of sorts in a series that had long lacked diversity in the field. He finished second in the 2018 Daytona 500, but has had limited success and often needed patchwork sponsorship deals to keep racing. His biggest reach for now is as an agent of change: He helped to push the issue of race to the front burner for NASCAR.
“We want all to feel welcome at our events in the future,” Daryl Wolfe, NASCAR executive vice president and chief sales and operations officer, said earlier in the week.
NASCAR has been more open in recent times to the eradication of the Confederate flag. NASCAR had already prohibited the use of the Confederate flag on its racecars and licensed merchandise, but had allowed fans to display them, although it asked them to “refrain” from doing so in 2015, following the murders of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. When former chairman Brian France tried to ban the flying of Confederate flags at race tracks that year, the proposal proved too broad to enforce and angered some of NASCAR’s core fan base. Not everyone obliged and fans staunchly defended their Confederate flags and raised them from their RVs.
“Now, it’s kind of a middle finger,” NASCAR historian Dan Pierce said.
But as Confederate monuments are toppled around the South and calls for social justice continue to ring out, those fans may have run out of time.
Wallace’s fellow drivers have followed his lead and broken with past protocols, where any hint of rankling corporate sponsors often led to muted responses to societal issues.
“I think it’s one of those things that some of us are just ignorant about and don’t really think about it or worry about it,” Martin Truex Jr. said Tuesday. “And then you hear somebody like Bubba talk about it and how he feels about it and it wakes you up a bit. Yeah, I think NASCAR is going to do the right thing there.”
Two-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin said he would support NASCAR taking a hard line on the Confederate flag.
“If you look at all the haulers each and every weekend, they’ve got the American flags flown all over the top of them. That’s what we salute when we do the national anthem,” he said.
Brad Daugherty, the lone black Cup Series team owner in NASCAR, told The Associated Press he stood with Wallace.
“After all this country has gone through in the last three months, I think Bubba Wallace’s thought of removing Confederate flags from NASCAR events is an idea whose time has come,” he said. “Think of it, you don’t see Confederate flags in the major leagues. You don’t see Confederate flags in the NBA. You don’t see Confederate flags in the NFL. Why should you see a Confederate flag at a NASCAR event?”