‘Rednecks For Black Lives’ urges Southerners to fight for racial equality

Prompted by George Floyd’s death, a new political movement called “Rednecks for Black Lives” has emerged on Facebook to urge rural Southerners to stand up for racial equality amid the wider cultural shift against racism throughout the country.

“Are you a white person who comes from a rural or small [town] in the south?” the group asks in its mission statement on Facebook. “Are you poor and working class? We’ve been lied to and told to blame our troubles on people of color. We don’t believe the lies anymore! We are here to fight for the south!”
The movement was launched June 22 and has nearly 3,000 members so far.

The group’s creator, Gregory Otis Reese, a proud Kentuckian who as recently as a month ago drove around with a Confederate flag sticker on his car, said Floyd’s death and the resulting protests around the country forced him to rethink his stance on racial issues.

“The catalyst was the George Floyd killing,” he told WBUR during a recent interview with “Here & Now” host Robin Young. “And then this wonderful child on the news talking about her father’s death and saying, ‘Daddy changed the world.’ ... And when I heard that, I cried,” he said. “My own daughter was sitting there and she teared up. We realized then, you know, we need to be a part of this. We need to help change this world for this child, for her future, for everyone’s future.”

Following the self-reckoning, Reese said he had a change of heart and felt “disgust” about ever flying the Confederate flag, which is widely viewed as both a symbol of racism and white Southern pride.

“Some of us still are in the dark or want to stay in the dark about [the flag],” he told WBUR. “And it was an icon growing up as a child. You saw it everywhere.”

Reese admitted that it took him some time to realize and admit that he was ready to change.

“You can sit back and say, you know, ‘Hey, this ain’t my fight.’ And a lot of us did for a long time,” Reese told WBUR. “But I want to be one of those out there pulling people into it because it is their fight. It always has been our fight. South, North, white, Black, brown, Latinos — everyone needs to get in this.”

Reese removed the Confederate flag magnet from the trunk of his car last month, just like Floyd protesters have toppled numerous relics of slavery and the Civil War around the country in recent weeks.

He replaced the decal with a self-made bumper sticker, which he calls a Southern pride flag — meant to represent all races, along with the phrase “Rednecks for Black Lives.”

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