No More Fort Bragg? Army Mulls Stripping Names Of All Bases Named After Confederate Generals

For the first time in decades since the issue was initially raised by the NAACP and other groups, the Pentagon says it’s now “open” to considering renaming all Army bases named after Confederate generals and leaders, after pressure coming from activists and civil rights groups amid George Floyd and ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests gripping the nation for the past two weeks.

This includes the sprawling Fort Hood base in Texas, named after Confederate General John Bell Hood, as well as nine other Army posts, especially Fort Lee Army Base in Virginia, named for top Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

No less than Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy signaled early this week they are “open to a bi-partisan discussion on the topic,” according to an official Army statement.

This shift in even considering the possibility was also reportedly triggered by The Marine Corps recently decreeing a ban on all displays of Confederate symbols, such as the Confederate battle flag, including even on individual personnel’s vehicles. The order even goes down to banning depictions of Confederate symbols on bumper stickers, mugs, or T-shirts and posters.

“The Confederate battle flag has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps,” the Marine Corps said in a statement.

Naturally, those advocating for the erasure of anything related to this era of American history and the Confederacy are pushing for more, even the names of major US bases. 

Here are ten base names that would be on the chopping block if the Department of Defense actually went through with the renaming: 

• Fort Benning in Georgia
• Fort Bragg in North Carolina
• Fort Hood in Texas
• Fort Lee in Virginia
• Fort Polk in Louisiana
• Fort Gordon in Georgia
• Fort Pickett in Virgina
• Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia
• Fort Rucker in Alabama
• Camp Beauregard in Louisiana 

But we ask: where does this attempted ‘purging’ of America’s past and historical memory end? 

How long till even the Washington monument or Jefferson Memorial are targeted? Will even Monticello be taken apart brick by brick? 

Certainly those now defacing buildings and monuments amid the protests of the past two weeks will not stop advocating for the erasure of all American history.