Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood Writes New York Times Editorial Condemning Confederate Flag

Drive-By Truckers‘ Patterson Hood has written an editorial for The New York Times in which he discusses the Confederate flag and Southern culture, ultimately concluding that the flag should be removed from use. The editorial coincides with the news that the flag has been taken down from the South Carolina State Capitol.

“Why would we want to fly a symbol that has been used by the K.K.K. and terrorists like Dylann Roof?” he writes. “Why would a people steeped in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible want to rally around a flag that so many associate with hatred and violence? Why fly a flag that stands for the very things we as Southerners have worked so hard to move beyond?” 

Hood begins the editorial by talking about his Southern upbringing, which he says came in a relatively progressive part of Alabama. (His father, David Hood, is the bassist for the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.) He says that while his great-great-grandfather fought for the Confederacy, the members of his family framed it as a man “fighting against a conquering army invading his home.” 

Such is the storytelling that pervades the Southern character. The South loves myths and legends, and while they may have roots in the truth, they often overlook certain complexities. We raise our children steeped in Gone With the Wind folklore and pretend that all the things we saw in 12 Years a Slave didn’t happen.

Hood also discusses how Drive-By Truckers have approached promoting Southern culture, and said they’d originally made “a conscious decision” to avoid discussing the flag. “We didn’t want our narrative getting bogged down in a debate about an antiquated symbol, one we considered a moot point in any case,” he writes. “My own coming-of-age story revolved around much more important things like going to rock concerts and trying to get a date or hanging out with friends on weekends. The flag might have been a backdrop at Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts, but beyond that it wasn’t really anything any of us thought much about at the time.”

Nevertheless, they had to cut down on performances of “The Southern Thing” from 2001′s Southern Rock Opera when fans began waving rebel flags. This, Hood says, sparked his re-evaluation of the flag as a symbol of prejudice. He said that given the shooting in Charleston, it’s time for the flag to be retired. He concludes:

If we want to truly honor our Southern forefathers, we should do it by moving on from the symbols and prejudices of their time and building on the diversity, the art and the literary traditions we’ve inherited from them. It’s time to study and learn about who we are and where we came from while finding a way forward without the baggage of our ancestors’ fears and superstitions. It’s time to quit rallying around a flag that divides. And it is time for the South to — dare I say it? — rise up and show our nation what a beautiful place our region is, and what more it could become.

Read the whole editorial here.

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