To many, the Confederate flag is a reminder of slavery and a symbol of racism. But to famed Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Confederate flag is just about rememberin’ their roots.
In an interview with CNN earlier this month, the only remaining original band member, Gary Rossington, said that the band would stop flying the flag at its shows because it was often misconstrued as racist.
“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, that’s what it was about,” Rossington said at the time. “We didn’t want that to go to our fans or show the image like we agreed with any of the race stuff or any of the bad things.”
But after backlash from the band’s die-hard Southern fans, Rossington took to Facebook Friday to clarify his previous statements.
I wanted to clarify the discussion of the Confederate Flag in our recent CNN interview. Myself, the past and present members (that are from the South), are all extremely proud of our heritage and being from the South. We know what the Dixie flag represents and its heritage; the Civil War was fought over States rights.
We still utilize the Confederate (Rebel) flag on stage every night in our shows, we are and always will be a Southern American Rock band, first and foremost. We also utilize the state flag of Alabama and the American flag, ‘cause at the end of the day, we are all Americans. I only stated my opinion that the confederate flag, at times, was unfairly being used as a symbol by various hate groups, which is something that we don’t support the flag being used for. The Confederate flag means something more to us, Heritage not Hate…
So far, the post has nearly 30,000 “likes.”