- The Country Music Association has banned Confederate flags from the upcoming 2022 Country Music Festival.
- Organizers said that they did not want any attendees to fear for their safety.
- CMA Fest is one of the largest country music festivals in the world.
The Country Music Association (CMA) has banned Confederate flags from the upcoming 2022 Country Music Festival.
"Confederate flag imagery of any kind" are now listed under prohibited items on the CMA Fest website.
The four-day festival in Nashville, Tennessee, which is considered to be one of the largest country music festivals in the world, is due to run from June 9-12 after a two-year postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This year's CMA Fest is our first major fan-facing event in nearly three years. We have always had policies in place that protect the safety of our fans and ban discrimination, but we felt it was important to further refine our language to explicitly outline what will and will not be tolerated," the Country Music Association said in a statement to the Tennessean.
"Any behavior that causes one of our attendees to fear for their personal safety will not be tolerated, and that is inclusive of any displays of the Confederate flag," the statement said.
The organization follows in the footsteps of other large festivals and events that have similarly banned Confederate flags, such as the Stagecoach Festival in California and NASCAR.
The Confederate flag has faced criticisms for its associations with racism and white supremacy, and debates have raged in recent years about the displaying of Confederate monuments and symbols. Defenders of the flag say that it is simply a proud symbol of the US South.
Luke Combs, who will be performing at this year's CMA Fest, last year apologized for previously appearing with Confederate flags.
"There's no excuse for those images," Combs said in a radio interview, explaining that his views on the flag had changed.
"And as I have grown in my time as an artist and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years, I am now aware of how painful that image can be to someone else," he said. "I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else."