When country singer John Rich took the stage at Flagstock 2024, his message was clear — “it’s OK to be patriotic.”
Rich of Big & Rich was part of the music festival at the University of North Carolina Monday, according to a report on Fox News.
Rich put on the festival to honor the fraternity brothers who made sure the American flag did not hit the ground as anti-Israel protests were taking place in May, Marc Oswald, Rich’s manager said.
“My question for you is this: Do you still love America?” Rich asked the students at the local VFW in Chapel Hill.
The response? “USA! USA! USA!”
Oswald explained the meaning of the festival’s name, saying Rich wanted a “protest to support patriotism” event and “make sure students and people in general feel it’s OK to be patriotic.”
The festival, which included performances by Lee Greenwood, Aaron Lewis and John Ondrasik, a.k.a. Five for Fighting, was attended by several hundred Chapel Hill students. Organizers expected closer to 2,000 students.
Matthew Broderick, a senior and a journalism major, said the “vibes on campus have been very split” as the festival approached.
“There’s a lot of people who are in huge favor of this. They love this. And then there’s a lot of people who think this is a really bad idea,” Broderick said. “I mean, I think some fraternities and sororities have been telling the people … ‘Hey, don’t come to this. We think it’s a bad look.’ And then some have been like, ‘Hey, please go to this is. It’s a really good look. It’s good for our fraternity and our sorority.’ … But I don’t think there’s a consensus about this.”
In May, protesters tried to replace the American flag on Chapel Hill’s quad with a Palestinian flag twice.
On the second attempt, students came to the flag’s rescue by preventing it from hitting the ground.
“We haven’t seen kids do what these kids did in a long time,” Technical Arts Group (TAG) Live Operations Director Jarrod Choury said. TAG Live supplied the stage for the concert.
The admiration for the students did not end there.
A 501 C-4 organization called Pints for Patriots was created to take part in organizing an event for the students.
Attorney Dan Craigg gave around $20,000 worth of pro-bono general counsel legal work for the event.
‘What those kids did was honorable and patriotic,” Craig said. “And we want to support that. … And certainly, we want to create an incentive system where sticking their neck out like that — defending the flag — there’s a there’s a bonus for that. There’s a reward for that.”
