Exploiting racial tensions, Trump wrongly accused Bubba Wallace of perpetrating a hoax after one of his crew members discovered a rope shaped like a noose in a garage stall they had been assigned to. He has worn a shirt saying I Cant Breathe," raced with a Black Lives Matter paint scheme in Virginia and successfully lobbied for NASCAR's Confederate flag ban. For more than 70 years, the flag was a common and complicated sight at NASCAR races. The series first tried to ban the Confederate flag five years ago but did nothing to enforce the order. While Trump claimed NASCAR's ratings are down, they are actually up.

Tate Reeves has said he will sign the bill, and the state flag would lose its official status as soon as he signs the measure. Mississippi has a 38% Black population and the last state flag that incorporates the emblem thats widely seen as racist. Religious groups including the large and influential Mississippi Baptist Convention said erasing the rebel emblem from the state flag is a moral imperative. Many people who wanted to keep the emblem on the Mississippi flag said they see it as a symbol of heritage. Georgia put the battle emblem prominently on its state flag in 1956, during a backlash to the civil rights movement.