Trace Adkins Shows Off Confederate Flag At Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Concert

Trace Adkins wore a Confederate flag earpiece during a nationally televised performance, leading to controversy for the country singer who has called the Civil War an act of “Northern aggression.”

Even before the Confederate flag incident, Trace Adkins has been known for his curious statements regarding the South, The Huffington Post noted. In his book, A Personal Stand, Adkins refers to the Civil War as the “War Against Northern Aggression.” He is also a lifetime member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that glorifies soldiers who fought to maintain slavery.

Sons of Confederate Veterans describes its mission:

“The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built.”

As the political blog Newsbusters found, even Adkins admits that the organization is tinged with racism.

“It sometimes gets a bad rap in the press when narrow-minders (I just made that word up, I think) claim that it’s simply a racist organization,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I’m not saying that there aren’t some racists in it. There probably are. But I think the large majority of members are people who don’t want history to forget the brave and gallant men who fought for the Confederacy.”

Trace Adkins was on the performance singing “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire,” and viewers on television could clearly see his Confederate Flag earpiece.

For Trace Adkins, the Confederate Flag earpiece could have well been a political statement. In August the country singer was featured at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where he played a politically themed song called “Tough People Do.”

Adkins is no stranger to politics. The country star, a Republican, appeared in Tampa for the GOP convention in August, where he debuted a politically-themed anthem called “Tough People Do.”