Rebel names fightin’ words

Order to rename military bases proves to be knotty effort

FAYETTEVILLE, N. C. — Braxton Bragg was an ill-tempered, largely failed Confederate general from a slave-owning family whose history has been omitted from the training curriculum for troops on the installation that bears his name. But many service members and residents of the adjacent town have learned all about him in recent months.

Still, ambivalence about renaming Fort Bragg, the largest base in the nation, runs deep.

“In a sense, changing the name will be a loss,” said Sonji Clyburn, a veteran of Fort Bragg who lives in Fayetteville, where at least two streets and several businesses are named after the base and everyone knows someone who was “back at Bragg.” But, she added, “I do understand people’s perspectives on this.”

Last year, Congress ordered that 10 Army posts be stripped of their Confederate names, a central piece of a larger American movement to dismantle Confederate symbols in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

President Donald Trump vetoed the bipartisan legislation that contained the provision directing the military to change the base names. He singled out Fort Bragg in his objections during one interview, calling the base “a big deal.” His veto was overridden in his final days in office.

A commission appointed by Congress to oversee the renaming progress has asked communities surrounding the bases to play a role in picking the new names. The public may also suggest names on a website, which has so far logged 27,000 recommendations. “I will say some of those suggestions on the website are quite intense,” said Michelle Howard, a retired naval admiral who is now the chairwoman of the commission. “There are some folks who are distinctly opposed, and the verbiage they use is quite deliberate.”

The commission, which has until 2022 to make its final recommendations, briefed lawmakers last week on its preliminary findings.

For some communities, the bases are an economic boon.

Fort Bragg, which is home to the storied 82nd Airborne Division and the Special Forces, is also central to the identity of a region in the shadows of the Research Triangle to the north.

“A lot of people have spent a pivotal time in their lives here,” said Kathy Jensen, mayor pro tem of Fayetteville, a city with 208,501 residents that sits next to the base.

But since change is inevitable, communities have been suggesting alternatives. Some have pondered the names of obscure military figures, historic generals and service members killed in recent conflicts. Several people have suggested women, like Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, an American abolitionist and the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor, or Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who was born enslaved.

Julia Moore, an Army wife credited with changing the way that the military notifies families when a loved one dies, and Alwyn C. Cashe, who was posthumously nominated to become the first Black service member to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, are other popular suggestions.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other groups would like to see Fort Hood in Texas named after Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, the first Mexican American four-star general.

One suggestion for Fort Bragg is to simply rename it after Braxton Bragg’s cousin, Edward Bragg, who was a Union general. Some see it as a painless swap, others a diversion from the spirit of the process.

“There is a lesson here,” said Wade Fowler, who was born and raised in Fayetteville and now runs a small barbecue joint where, on a recent Tuesday, a few dozen troops worked their way through pork sandwiches and coleslaw, as did a local radio personality and an ex-mayor or two. “Don’t name things after people.”

Still, that idea clearly has traction. “Everyone is getting on board with Edward S. Bragg,” said Franco Webb, chairman of the Military Affairs Council in Fayetteville. “This would save the taxpayers millions of dollars.”

Communities have found themselves immersed in history-rich and, at times, painful excavations at meetings with commission members, town halls and other gatherings, commissioners and residents said. “For me it’s been really insightful,” said Jerald Mitchell, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Columbus, Ga., which is closely associated with Fort Benning, named after Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning, who commanded Confederate troops at the Battle of Gettysburg.

“There are lots of people that are really excited about it because of the issues around equity and inclusion,” Mitchell said. “There are some people who don’t want the name to change. It’s not that they want to embrace Confederate symbolism; it’s because they identify the installation as a place, not a person. Their parents met while someone was doing their service at Fort Benning, or their child was born at Fort Benning. We are communicating that this is federal law — it’s going to happen, so we just need to be a part of it.”

Residents are learning about local heroes whose names were lost to history and often encountering one another’s views for the first time.

“These conversations have been eye-opening because you never know who is in the room until they open their mouth,” said Ronnie Russell, who served at Fort Hood for 22 years and is now the president of the Innovation Black Chamber of Commerce in Killeen.

Fort Hood is named after John Bell Hood, who joined the Confederate Army at the beginning of the Civil War and commanded the Texas Brigade. One man at a meeting, Russell said, suggested that a name change was akin to a land grab. “I raised my hand and said, ‘I don’t think we want to have a conversation about land being taken from Fort Hood unless you wanna peel that onion back.’”

Hundreds of farming families were displaced from their homes to make room for the base in the 1940s, and the remains of members of the Tonkawa tribe have also been discovered there.

Not every community may be as invested. “I would say 75% of the community have no idea who Fort Polk was named after,” said Kathleen E.R. Smith, a professor of history at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, at the Leesville/ Fort Polk campus. (The base was named after Confederate Gen. Leonidas Polk, not the former president, as some believe.)

“In the 1940s, it was a kind of gesture from the F. D. R. administration to further secure Southern Democrats’ support for the United States effort in World War II,” said Nina Silber, chairwoman of the history department at Boston University.

“It’s also interesting, and, I think, also painful in some ways, to think about these Confederate-named military installations being home to many African American soldiers and their families.”

For people in Fayetteville, the weighing continues.

“I have mixed emotions,” Fowler said. “My preference would be to leave it. But I’m not going to cry when it’s changed.”