Fort Bragg shed its Confederate namesake to become Fort Liberty in a ceremony that some veterans said was a small but important step in making the U.S. military more welcoming to current and future black servicemen.
The change on Friday was part of a wide-ranging initiative by the US Department of Defense, prompted by the 2020 George Floyd racial justice protests, to rename military installations named after Confederate soldiers.
The prevalence of statues and places honoring members of the Confederacy, many of whom were slave owners, has remained a persistent and controversial issue in the US as debates about 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 root cause of the ensuing American Civil War.
While Confederate statues were erected all over the U.S., most are concentrated in Confederate 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 following the killing of Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, coupled with ongoing efforts to remove Confederate monuments, turned the spotlight on the military’s installations.
A naming committee set up by the US Congress visited the bases and met with members of the surrounding communities for input.
While other bases are renamed for black soldiers, US presidents and trailblazing women, the North Carolina military installation is the only one not renamed after an individual.
Retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Ty Seidule said at a committee meeting last year that the new name was chosen because “freedom remains the greatest American value.”
“Fayetteville signed one of the first accords in 1775 declaring our willingness to fight for freedom and liberty of Great Britain,” said Lieutenant General Christopher Donahue, the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Liberty, referring to the town adjacent to the base. “Freedom is always ingrained in this area.”
The cost of renaming Fort Bragg — one of the largest military installations in the world by population — will total about $6.37 million, according to a report from the commission.
“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 installation to change its name to Fort Johnson on June 13, in honor of Sergeant William Henry Johnson.
The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for General Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles that contributed to the downfall of the Confederacy.
Several military bases have been named after Confederate soldiers during World Wars I and II as part of a “demonstration of appeasement” with white Southerners amid a broader effort to rally the nation to fight as one, Nina Silber, a historian at Boston University.
“It was a kind of gesture of ‘Yes, we recognize your patriotism,’ which is quite absurd to recognize the patriotism of people who have revolted against a country,” she said.
The original naming process involved members of local communities, though black residents were kept out of the conversations. Bases are named after soldiers who were born or raised in the area, regardless of how effectively they performed their duties. Bragg is widely regarded among historians as a bad leader who did not enjoy the respect of his troops, Silber said.
For Isiah James, senior policy officer at the Black Veterans Project, the renaming of the base is a “long overdue” change that he hopes will lead to more substantial improvements for Black Service members.
“America shouldn’t have any remnants of slavery and secessionism and celebrate them,” he said.
“We shouldn’t praise them and hold them and revere them to where every time a black soldier enters the base, they get the message that this base Bragg is named after someone you wanted to keep as human property.”
The Minister of Defense is legally obliged to implement the changes proposed by the naming committee by January 1, 2024.