President Trump announced Tuesday that he will restore the names of Fort Robert E. Lee and six other military bases that formerly honored Confederate war leaders.
“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett [in Virginia], Fort Hood [in Texas], Fort Gordon [in Georgia], Fort Rucker [in Alabama], Fort Polk [in Louisiana], Fort A.P. Hill [in Virginia] and Fort Robert E. Lee [also in Virginia],” Trump said in a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina marking the US Army’s 250th anniversary.
“We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change. And I’m superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going, right? I’m very superstitious,” Trump said.
“We want to keep it going. So that’s a big story.”
The base that hosted Trump was itself recently renamed — though in that case, the Army in February restored its original moniker to honor World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient Roland Bragg rather than Confederate general Braxton Bragg.
Former President Joe Biden renamed the bases honoring the Confederates in 2023 — with Bragg, the nation’s largest base, briefly known as Fort Liberty instead.
Biden initiated the renaming process in 2021 — in the wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests the prior year — by signing a bill that created a commission and a three-year timetable to drop tributes to men who led the slave states’ revolt between 1861 and 1865.
It’s unclear whether Trump requires fresh legal authority to restore the names — particularly those of Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee, which he implied would not be rechristened in honor of someone of the same surname.
The base honoring Lee, the top general of the Confederacy, is located in Petersburg, Va., south of Richmond, and houses the US Army Ordnance Corps and the Quartermaster Center and School.
Those having their names stripped from bases pursuant to the latest change include former President Dwight D. Eisenshower, the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II.
Eisenhower is the current namesake of the 30,000-worker signals intelligence site in eastern Georgia that formerly was named after John Brown Gordon, a Peach State senator, governor and reputed leader in the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump has for years argued that emotional and community ties to long-standing base names means they shouldn’t change.
“We won two world wars in those forts,” Trump said at a campaign rally last July as he attacked the moves by Biden.
Like Fort Bragg, Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga. also had its name restored through the choice of a fresh honoree of the same surname — with World War I hero Cpl. Fred Benning receiving the honor instead of Confederate Gen. Henry Benning.
