Fort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake to become Fort Liberty in a ceremony that some veterans say was a small but important step in making the United States Army more welcoming to current and future black service members.
Friday’s change was part of a broad initiative by the US Department of Defense, prompted by George Floyd 2020. protests for racial justiceto rename military installations that had been named after Confederate soldiers.
He prevalence of statues and sites honoring members of the Confederacy, many of whom were slave owners, remains a persistent and controversial issue in the US as discussions of the country’s legacy of racism continue.
The Confederacy was a group of 11 southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860. The desire of these states to preserve the institution of slavery was a primary motivation for secession and the primary cause of the subsequent US Civil War. USA
While the Confederate statues were erected in the USAmost are concentrated in the southern states that fought for the Confederacy during the war, which lasted from 1861 to 1865 and killed more than 600,000 people.
The Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted across the country after the murder of floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, along with ongoing efforts to remove Confederate monuments, put the spotlight on Army facilities.
A naming commission created by the US Congress visited the bases and met with members of the surrounding communities for comment.
while another the bases are being renamed For black soldiers, US presidents and pioneering women, the North Carolina military installation is the only one that hasn’t had a person’s name changed.
Retired US Army Brigadier General Ty Seidule told a commission meeting last year that the new name was chosen because “freedom remains America’s greatest value.”
“Fayetteville in 1775 signed one of the first agreements declaring our willingness to fight for the freedom of Great Britain,” said Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, referring to the town adjacent to the base. . “Freedom has always been rooted in this area.”
The cost of renaming Fort Bragg, one of the world’s largest military installations by population, will total about $6.37 million, according to a commission report.
“The name changes, the mission doesn’t change,” base spokeswoman Cheryle Rivas said Friday morning before the ceremony.
Fort Polk in Louisiana will be the next facility to change its name on June 13 to Fort Johnson, in honor of Staff Sergeant William Henry Johnson.
The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for General Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles that contributed to the fall of the Confederacy.
Several military bases were named after Confederate soldiers during World War I and World War II as part of a “reconciliation show” with white Southerners amid a broader effort to unite the nation to fight as one. said Nina Silber, a historian at Boston University. .
“It was kind of a ‘Yes, we recognize your patriotism’ gesture, which is a bit absurd to recognize the patriotism of people who rebelled against a country,” he said.
The original appointment process involved members of local communities, although black residents were left out of the talks. The bases were named for soldiers born or raised nearby, regardless of how effectively they performed their duties. Bragg is widely regarded among historians as a poor leader who did not command the respect of his troops, Silber said.
For Isiah James, a senior policy officer at the Black Veterans Project, the base name changes are a “long overdue” change that he hopes will lead to more substantial improvements for black service members.
“America should have no vestiges of slavery and secessionism and celebrate them,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be praising, lifting, and revering them to the point that every time a black soldier walks onto the base, they get the message that this Bragg Base is named after someone who wanted to keep them as human property.”
The secretary of defense is required by law to implement the changes proposed by the naming commission by January 1, 2024.
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