‘Rager’ for the ‘broleteriat’: UNC frats party at Flagstock, but not all support the event

After riding a monthslong wave of social media fame that even led to an appearance at July’s Republican National Convention, UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who held up the American flag during an April campus protest got the “rager” that a $515,000 GoFundMe promised to throw them.

“Flagstock 2024,” an invite-only concert featuring country musicians Big & Rich and Lee Greenwood, among others, was held Monday evening at the Chapel Hill American Legion. Organizers chose to not disclose the location ahead of time in an effort to prevent protests, John Rich of Big & Rich told reporters in a virtual press conference last week.

Flagstock, which is not sponsored by the university, stemmed from a tense day of protests on the Chapel Hill campus this spring.

Police in the early hours of April 30 disbanded a four-day, pro-Palestinian “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Polk Place, charging three dozen protesters with trespassing, including six who were arrested. The UNC chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized the encampment as part of the group’s efforts to demand the university disclose and divest from investments it holds in companies supporting Israel and to end study abroad programs to Israel.

Hours after the encampment was disbanded, protesters returned to the quad for a rally, which ended in demonstrators pulling down the American flag from the main campus flagpole and replacing it with a Palestinian flag.

UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts led police onto the quad shortly afterward to restore the American flag to the pole. Their efforts lasted only a few minutes, though, with pro-Palestinian protesters attempting to pull down the flag once more. But a group of counter-protesters — largely made up of the fraternity brothers — gathered to hold up the flag and keep it from touching the ground before taking it to police.

The moment went viral online almost immediately, gaining the attention of former President Donald Trump and others — including John Noonan, a former conservative political adviser who organized a GoFundMe to raise funds for a “rager” in honor of the “triumphant Brohemians” who protected the flag.

With an original goal of $15,000, the fundraiser eventually garnered more than $515,000 in less than a week.

UNC SJP did not respond to The News & Observer’s request for comment on Flagstock.

Organizers said Monday that they distributed about 3,000 tickets and expected about 1,000 people to attend. Those numbers were down from a previous estimate organizer Susan Ralston — formerly a special assistant to President George W. Bush — gave reporters last week. At that time, Ralson said organizers planned to distribute between 6,000 to 7,000 tickets, with 2,500 to 3,000 expected to attend.

A few hundred people appeared to be present Monday evening. An official attendance account was not immediately available.

All of the university’s fraternities and sororities, as well as the campus ROTC, were invited to the event, with 10 “core” fraternities that had members at the flagpole on April 30 invited to be VIP guests. A June update to the GoFundMe originally identified six fraternities as part of that group: Pi Kappa Phi, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Delta Upsilon, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi Gamma Delta and Zeta Beta Tau.

Rich said last week he believes “this event is going to be like nothing anybody’s ever seen” and that it would promote patriotism over any particular political stance or belief.

But not all of the fraternities are on board with Flagstock, or how their actions during the April protest have been portrayed ahead of the event.

Differing views on Flagstock, protest

Brendan Rosenblum, a UNC student and a member of Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi who held the flag up in April, agrees with onlookers’ assessment that he and other fraternity members participated in a “patriotic act” that day.

But he views the event and the rhetoric that has surrounded it in a more somber way. While others may view the pro-Palestinian protesters as “a mob” — as one member of the campus Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity said at the Republican National Convention in July — Rosenblum sees them as his fellow students, and views the events of April 30 as a failure from multiple groups to foster civil discourse about the war in Gaza.

“I think we were there that day to try to, you know, represent our beliefs,” Rosenblum said. “But also, everyone was there because they cared about an issue, and whether or not I agree with them, it doesn’t matter.”

He worries that Flagstock will cause more division, and that the event is a distraction — both from what he and his fraternity brothers were trying to accomplish that day, and from the ongoing war in Gaza.

John Ondrasik, the lead singer of Five for Fighting who was the first performer on stage, condemned Hamas and called pro-Palestinian protesters “a cult” before calling attention to the recent news of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s death. He then dedicated the song “Superman” in Goldberg-Polin’s honor.

Despite some organizers’ ties to Republican leaders and some fraternity members’ appearance at the RNC, Flagstock organizers emphasized that the event was not intended to be political.

Still, performer Aaron Lewis at one point sang “F*** Joe Biden” in his song “Let’s Go Fishing.”

Several attendees, including UNC College Republicans member Preston Hill, wore clothing or accessories supporting Trump. Hill, who is not a member of a fraternity, said he attended the event because it was “a celebration of the American flag and American values and just being Americans.”

Hill said he wore a “Make America Great Again” hat to the event because he wants “people to associate Americanism with this movement.”

At one point late in the evening, UNC alumnus and actor Nick Searcy came on stage to lead the crowd in the university’s fight song.

Marc Oswald, manager for Big & Rich, told reporters on Monday that the event’s name, which hearkens back to the 1969 Woodstock musical, was intentional on Rich’s part, saying Rich wanted the event to symbolize a “cultural statement of the times.” That statement, Oswald said, lets students and others across the country know that “it’s OK to wave the flag.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Oswald said. “It’s great.”

Jason Calderon, a UNC student and member of the Jewish fraternity Zeta Beta Tau, told reporters last week that the fraternities’ actions during the protests and the larger Flagstock event should be seen as “a patriotic thing, not a political thing.”

Rich echoed that sentiment, saying: “I believe patriotism crosses all boundaries.”

Still, Rosenblum was at home in New York on Monday, not at Flagstock.

“To go out and drink right now, especially when this war is still going on, especially when we still have a lot of problems on campus trying to respect each other’s opinions, and we’re in this divisive place,” Rosenblum said, “is not what I want to do.”

Potential charitable donations

The funds raised through the GoFundMe are largely being used to throw Monday’s concert, with any leftover money expected to be donated to charities chosen by the “core” fraternities.

Several aspects of the event are being donated at-cost by sponsors, Ralston said last week. That includes the stage set-up, provided by TAG Live of New Jersey, and food and beverage for the VIP fraternities, with barbecue from Mission BBQ, beer from Red Moose Brewing Company of Pittsboro and wings from Hooters — served by Hooters Girls.

But organizers still expected to spend as much as $100,000 on the stage and about $80,000 on private security, accounting for nearly half of the roughly $500,000 budget, not including other expenses. That makes it unclear how much money will be left for the charities, though organizers have vowed to be transparent and share more details after the event.

Calderon said last week the charities selected by the “core” fraternities include the Wounded Warrior, Children of Fallen Patriots, Back the Blue NC and the Zeta Beta Tau Foundation, which sponsors programming to combat antisemitism.

Noonan, though, said the charitable donations were “a secondary consideration” to the concert and party, adding that the donations would be an additional “element of helping us say ‘thank you’ to these great guys who did a great thing.”

That’s largely because GoFundMe’s regulations require organizers to use the money they raise only for the specific purposes originally stated in the fundraiser. Noonan’s original post to the fundraiser asked for donations to “to throw these frats the party they deserve” — not for charitable causes.

“Our brains are trained to think: charitable donations, good; giant frat ragers, bad and frivolous,” Noonan said. “But in this case, it’s completely flipped on its head, right?”

Organizers also set up an online Flagstock merchandise store in recent weeks, which Noonan said would help further offset the costs of the event, though he was not sure by how much.

“I don’t think, at the end of the day, the merch store is going to be a very big part of those cost offsets,” Noonan said. “But it’s an opportunity for people who may have missed that 48-hour donation window to have a little piece of Flagstock and take it home with them.”

Rosenblum said he would have rather seen the money for the party used to support organizations fighting antisemitism, to support relief efforts in Gaza or to provide spaces on campus for dialogue about the war.

“There could have just been so much done with that money,” he said.

The concert portion of the event ended with all of the performers joining Lee Greenwood on stage to sing “God Bless the USA,” with fireworks going off in the background.

“God bless the boys in Chapel Hill,” Greenwood said at the end of the song. “We stand with you.”