The U.S. Navy is drafting an order that would ban the Confederate battle flag as protests continue across the United States.
“The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday, has directed his staff to begin crafting an order that would prohibit the Confederate battle flag from all public spaces and work areas aboard Navy installations, ships, aircraft and submarines,” Gilday’s spokesman, Cmdr. Nate Christensen, said in a Tuesday statement.
“The order is meant to ensure unit cohesion, preserve good order and discipline, and uphold the Navy’s core values of honor, courage and commitment,” Christensen added.
The Navy will join the Marine Corps in prohibiting the flag. Back in April, commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David Berger, instituted a similar policy.
“I am mindful that many people believe that flag to be a symbol of heritage or regional pride. But I am also mindful of the feelings of pain and rejection of those who inherited the cultural memory and present effects of the scourge of slavery in our country,” Berger said in announcing the policy. “My intent is not to judge the specific meaning anyone ascribes to that symbol or declare someone’s personally held view to be incorrect.”
“Rather, I am focused solely on building a uniquely capable warfighting team whose members come from all walks of life and must learn to operate side by side,” he added.
The news comes the same day that the Army left the door open to renaming 10 bases that honor prominent Confederates.
“The secretary of the Army is open to a bipartisan discussion on renaming bases,” said an Army spokesperson on Tuesday.
Protests calling attention to systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S. began after video was released that showed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, being violently pinned to the ground by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin. Floyd can be heard begging for air while Chauvin dug his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
