‘Never too late to unlearn hate’: Woman goes viral for burning Confederate flag on TikTok and apologising for flying it

A woman has gone viral on TikTok after she renounced then burned a Confederate flag in front of her audience, saying she is “redneck but never racist”.

The woman, who has been identified in reports as ‘Danielle’ can be seen in the short clip cutting the flag down from a pole and then setting it on fire.

“I’m sorry if I ever showed I was ‘racist’ from a flag. We burnt it tonight!”, she said in a written caption.

She added: “I’m sorry our culture taught us this was okay, it’s not. I’m white, I’m redneck, but never racist. RIP to this racist flag." It isn’t clear where the woman is from or lives currently.

The flag has long been a divisive and racist symbol, with extremists often using the flag to stoke hate and ideas of white supremacy.

A Donald Trump supporter was photographed carrying the flag into the US Capitol during the 6 January riots, prompting outrage.

While the flag that Danielle burned was the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia rather than the official flag of the Confederacy, it has become a synonymous symbol.

In another video, the woman answered a question from a commenter asking what she thought the flag actually meant when she was growing up.

"I don’t really remember being taught about it in school. It wasn’t like ‘this is the flag’ or ‘this is what it means,’ it wasn’t that,”  Danielle said.

She added: “In the South, everybody flies their flags, so it was more like, ‘Well, everybody else is doing it so that’s something that we should do,’ that’s really it."

In a second follow-up video, Danielle can be seen apparently burning the flag on a bonfire after someone asks her to see something with more “pizazz”.

Commenters were overwhelmingly supportive of the woman’s attempt to revise her past actions, with one saying: “Hell yes, we love to see it.”

“YES! Never be afraid to admit you’re wrong and grow as a person!!”, a user named Payton Rusk commented while another said it was “never too late to unlearn hate”.

Others said they had “respect” for the action applauding the woman for being “open-minded” and “self-aware”.

The video quickly gained traction on the platform and has since been watched 257,000 times.