Kid Rock Confederate Flag Flap Fizzles

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The flap over Kid Rock and the Confederate battle flag wilted Friday after a meeting between protesters who want the Detroit country-hip-hop-rock superstar to renounce the flag as a symbol of racism, and executives of General Motors, whose Chevrolet brand is sponsoring his summer tour.

The meeting occurred a day after the Rock’s publicist said he hasn’t used the embattled symbol in his act for about five years, and that Rock’s thinking about it changed when a Confederate battle flag was burned in protest outside Detroit’s Cobo Center as he was being honored by the NAACP.

In statement Friday, GM said: “Chevrolet plans to continue its sponsorship of Kid Rock’s summer concert series.”

The automaker called the discussion with the Rev. Charles Williams III, president of the Michigan chapter of the National Action Network, “very constructive,” and said “we plan to continue the dialogue going forward.”

Williams, who also described the meeting as constructive and positive, is letting the issue go for now, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“There’s not a need to protest now,” Williams said. “It doesn’t mean it’s off the table, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be escalated actions at some point. It just means the dialogue is going in the right direction, and we are looking forward to seeing if we can come to some solutions.”

Related:

• Activists Want Kid Rock to Abandon Confederate Flag
• Kid Rock’s Profane Message to Confederate Flag Protesters
• GM, Activists to Meet over Kid Rock’s Confederate Flag
• Publicist: Kid Rock Hasn’t Flown Confederate Flag Since 2010

The protests by the Michigan chapter of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s NAN were among many taking place across the country in the weeks following the massacre of nine African-Americans at a South Carolina church, allegedly by a gunman shown brandishing the battle flag in photos posted on white supremacist websites.

The tragedy reinvigorated longstanding debates about whether the flag is a symbol of Southern pride and states’ rights, or a snapping reminder of a time when African-Americans were bought and sold in the slave trade. Though decades in the making, change came swiftly, most noticeably in South Carolina, a bulwark of the former Confederacy. The Confederate battle flag was removed from the South Carolina Capitol grounds last week.

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Photo: Will Byington Photography