House and Senate Democrats are pushing bills to strip the names of Confederate generals from Army base names and other military properties.
Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., a Congressional Black Caucus member, is working on a bill that would mandate military installations be renamed in order to no longer celebrate men who fought for slavery’s continuance. Ten House Democrats from New York and New Jersey have signed on.
“Naming military property after armed insurrectionists with American blood on their hands is an affront to members of the Armed Forces, many of whom are people of color, who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution,” Clarke said. “There are an ample number of meritorious members of the Armed Forces, who loyally served the United States, for whom military property could and should be named.”
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., also plans to introduce a bill that would require Confederate leaders be removed from inside the U.S. Capitol building, according to a McClatchy report Thursday.
The new push to replace southern military leaders from the Civil War comes days after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Protesters turned out last Saturday to show support for a Robert E. Lee monument, but they were met by counter protesters. A man who is believed to be affiliated with the white supremacists later drove a car into a crowd of counter protesters, killing one woman.
The incident, along with a hate crime shooting at a black church in Charleston, S.C., last year, has prompted state and local leaders to reconsider Confederate statues in their own backyards.
Although Republicans in Congress have decried the Charlottesville car attack and racism in general, they remain on the sidelines as Democrats push to erase all references to the South’s pro-slavery views from government property.
If successful, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, and Fort Benning in Georgia would be among the military facilities renamed after non-Confederate men and women.
