Lady Antebellum, Hit Country Trio, Changes Its Name in Wake of Protests

The Grammy-winning, best-selling country trio known as Lady Antebellum is no more. Now it’s just Lady A.

The Nashville group announced its name change on Thursday in a letter to fans, alluding to the recent weeks of Black Lives Matter protests across the United States and the world, writing, “Our hearts have been stirred with conviction, our eyes opened wide to the injustices, inequality and biases black women and men have always faced and continue to face everyday.”

“Blind spots we didn’t even know existed have been revealed,” the band added. “After much personal reflection, band discussion, prayer and many honest conversations with some of our closest black friends and colleagues, we have decided to drop the word ‘antebellum’ from our name and move forward as Lady A, the nickname our fans gave us almost from the start.”

In the United States, the term antebellum, which comes from the Latin for “before war,” is generally used to refer to the antebellum South, pre-Civil War, and can be seen as a way of romanticizing plantation life while overlooking centuries of black slavery, according to critics. The band — which includes the musicians Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — said it took the name when it formed in 2006, as a reference to the “‘antebellum’ style home where we took our first photos.”

“We were going to call ourselves something like Springdale, or something, but names are so hard to come up with,” Kelley said in an interview last year. “I was like, ‘Man that’s a beautiful Antebellum house, and that’s cool, maybe there’s a haunted ghost or something in there like Lady Antebellum.’ We all thought it sounded cool, like southern rock, and there was a southern rock kind of song we had written, and the Beatles was taken.”

Haywood said previously that the name “just feels kind of country and nostalgic.”

Lady Antebellum went on to become one of the most popular groups in modern country music, selling more than 10 million albums across eight releases and winning five Grammy Awards, including record of the year and best country album for the 2009 hit “Need You Now.”

But the trio’s name has long raised eyebrows, with one critic writing in Ms. magazine in 2011, saying that it “seems to me an example of the way we still — nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War, nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act; and in a supposedly post-racial country led by a biracial president — glorify a culture that was based on the violent oppression of people of color.”

The switch to Lady A comes at a time of mass reckoning across politics and popular culture following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month and the subsequent protests against racism and police brutality. Television shows like “Cops” and “Live P.D.” have been canceled; the streaming service HBO Max pulled “Gone With the Wind,” a film long charged with romanticizing the antebellum South; and NASCAR said on Wednesday that it would ban the Confederate flag from its races, as monuments depicting Confederate figures were being torn down or reconsidered nationwide.

President Donald J. Trump has pushed back against the changes, arguing that Army bases named after Confederate officers should not be adjusted, and tweeting on Thursday morning, “THOSE THAT DENY THEIR HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!”

On Lady Antebellum’s social media pages, the announcement was met with mixed reviews, including many fans who praised the group’s “awakening,” while others slammed the trio for “virtue signaling.” “Love your music. Now it is tainted to me forever,” one commenter wrote. “How easy it is to follow the sheep.”

Another added: “Yep I’m out. You just don’t have what it takes. You took a knee and bowed under pressure.”

Tyne Parrish, a spokeswoman for the band, said that all of its corporate partners, including the group’s record label, Big Machine, “have been incredibly supportive of the change,” and that it would not affect any of the band’s contractual obligations past or present. She added that adjusting how Lady Antebellum was presented on social media and streaming services, like Spotify or Apple Music, would “take time to work through,” and was still being finalized.

“It was more important to the band to share their hearts than to have all the details ironed out,” Parrish said.