Alvin Kamara knew a little bit _ a very little bit _ about NASCAR before Wednesday. He grew up in Georgia and has spent pretty much his entire life living in the South, so he would maybe watch a race for a few minutes while he flipped through channels in the summer and nothing else was going on. He never really cared enough to learn how the sport works.
On Wednesday, NASCAR made the shocking _ yet long overdue _ decision to ban the Confederate flag from its venues, at the urging of Bubba Wallace, the lone full-time black driver in the NASCAR Cup Series. "When the next race?" Kamara asked on Twitter once he saw the news. About an hour later, the New Orleans Saints running back plopped down in front of his television to live tweet the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500. By banning the Confederate flag, NASCAR gained one prominent fan.
"I've watched it before, like I've turned it on and just skimmed through it, but I never really understood it," Kamara said as he watched a NASCAR Xfinity Series race Sunday in Homestead. "I never even really took the time to understand what was going on."
He was probably the most famous fan in attendance Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. On Sunday, NASCAR opened its doors to 1,000 fans for the Dixie Vodka 400 _ the first time a major sports league has hosted fans since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March. Most of the spectators were military personnel, but NASCAR also extended an invitation to Kamara, who spends his offseasons training in South Florida. Right around noon, Kamara pulled up to the track decked out in a Wallace T-shirt and hat to support one of the unlikely new faces of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Kamara had played a football game at a NASCAR track before _ he played at Bristol Motor Speedway as a junior for the Tennessee Volunteers _ but Sunday was the first time he was at a track for an actual race and it was all thanks to Wallace.
Kamara and Wallace first crossed paths about four or five years ago. Kamara was a rising-star at Tennessee, and Wallace, whose mother competed in track and field for the Volunteers, would make frequent trips to Knoxville as he toiled in NASCAR's minor-league series.
In 2017, Wallace became the first Black driver to compete in the Cup Series in more than a decade. In the last two weeks, he has become one of the most famous drivers in the sports, speaking out about police brutality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and donning a Black Lives Matter paint job on his No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on Wednesday at Martinsville Speedway. When he pushed NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag from crowds and campsites Monday, Wallace created a new entryway for Black fans, like Kamara, who previously felt alienated by the sport's history with the racist symbol.
"I don't think it's about when to say it. It's about it actually being said," Kamara said. "It's taken this long to do it and it is what it is. Me personally, I'm not going to be mad at that because the climate dictated it. The fact that they sat down and got rid of it, and are making these strides to flip the script, that's all you can ask for."
In Kamara's life, the Confederate flag has been ever-present. He grew up in Georgia, then played for the Alabama Crimson Tide and Tennessee. When Kamara was in college, a neighbor who lived two doors down from him in his dormitory had a Confederate Flag draped over his door. For most of Kamara's life, it was a normal, daily occurrence to see the battle flag of the Confederate States of America flying somewhere.
"You see it. It's just one of those things where what can you do? You just kind of look the other way, like, Oh, man. Especially me. I'm Black. I don't play around with that," Kamara said. "It almost becomes normalized, but I still know the significance and I know what that means. Behind that door, there might be some (expletive) I don't like, you know what I'm saying? But what can I do?"
In his world, Wallace forced a change. As protests broke out across the United States and athletes became more vocal about social justice than ever, Wallace went on CNN on Monday and called for NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag
"No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race," Wallace said, "so it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here. They have no place for them."
Two days later, NASCAR heeded his call. The rest of the Cup Series' drivers, almost all of them white, rallied around Wallace.
When NASCAR tweeted the short press release announce the flag ban Wednesday, the comments were filled with fans angry about the association's decision. A driver on the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series even announced his retirement because of the decision.
There were also those like Kamara, newly inspired to give a sport omnipresent in their lives a fair shake for the first time. For a potential new generation of NASCAR fans, Wallace is a game-changing superstar.
"I know he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders being the only African-American driver with what's going on and what the climate of the world is right now, and taking a stand," Kamara said. "He's backed into a corner right now and it takes a lot of courage to be in the place that he's in and still say, You know what? I'm going to stand up for what's right instead of just being quiet and I commend him on that. It takes a lot of bravery. It takes being comfortable in your skin to be able to do something like that."
