Army’s Ft. Bragg renamed Ft. Liberty
FT. LIBERTY, N.C. — Ft. Bragg shed its Confederate namesake Friday to become Ft. Liberty in a ceremony some veterans said was a small but important step in making the U.S. Army more welcoming to current and prospective Black service members.
The change was part of a broad Defense Department initiative, motivated by the 2020 George Floyd protests, to rename installations that bore the names of Confederate soldiers.
The nationwide demonstrations after the Black man’s murder by a white Minneapolis police officer, coupled with ongoing efforts to take down Confederate monuments, turned the spotlight onto Army installations. A commission created by Congress visited bases and met with area residents for input.
“We were given a mission, we accomplished that mission and we made ourselves better,” Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Liberty, told reporters after the ceremony that made the name change official.
Other bases are being renamed for Black soldiers, U.S. presidents and trailblazing women; the North Carolina base is the only one not being named for a person. Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule said last year that its name reflects that “liberty remains the greatest American value.”
“Fayetteville in 1775 signed one of the first accords declaring our willingness to fight for liberty and freedom from Great Britain,” Donahue noted of the city adjacent to the base.
Renaming what is one of the largest military installations in the world by population will cost about $8 million, Col. John Wilcox said Friday. Most front-facing signage has been updated, but the process is ongoing.
Ft. Polk in Louisiana will be the next to change its name, becoming Ft. Johnson on June 13 in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson.
Ft. Liberty was originally named in 1918 for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, N.C., who owned slaves and was known for losing Civil War battles that contributed to the Confederacy’s downfall.
Several bases were named for Confederate soldiers during World War I and World War II in a “demonstration of reconciliation” with white Southerners during an effort to rally the nation, said Nina Silber, a historian at Boston University.
“It was kind of a gesture of, ‘Yes, we acknowledge your patriotism’ — which is kind of absurd, to acknowledge the patriotism of people who rebelled against a country,” she said.
The previous naming process involved communities, but not Black residents. Bases were named after soldiers from the area, no matter how they performed or whether they fought against the Union in the Civil War.
Isiah James of the Black Veterans Project said the renamings are a “long overdue” change that he hopes will lead to more substantial changes for Black troops.
“America should not have vestiges of slavery and secessionism and celebrate them,” he said. “We should not laud them and hold them up and venerate them to [the point that] every time a Black soldier goes onto the base, they get the message that this base ... is named after someone who wanted to keep you as human property.”
Gregory Patterson, 64, joined fellow veterans last week at a celebration of the 82nd Airborne Division, one of the last major events under the name Ft. Bragg. He said that he understood why the name was changed, but that he associated it not with the person, but with the place — specifically as the home of the 82nd Airborne.
“I’m still gonna call it Bragg,” he said.