June 12, 2025
The Army bases that were previously named after Confederate soldiers have been renamed to honor Black, Hispanic, and female military leaders.
President Donald Trump announced plans to restore the names of seven Army bases named after Confederate soldiers. The president revealed the upcoming changes during a June 10 appearance at Fort Bragg Army Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
“We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts, it’s no time to change.”
After Trump returned to office in January, the Department of Defense restored the names of two military bases: Fort Bragg and Fort Benning in Georgia. The administration circumvented the law that prevents the Pentagon from naming bases after Confederate leaders, renaming them after other soldiers who share the same last names. The army stated in a press release that it will employ the same tactics to rename the bases mentioned in Trump’s announcement.
During his first term, Trump, a convicted felon, advocated for maintaining the original base names. In 2020, he attempted to block the creation of the Congressional Naming Commission, a team that would recommend name changes. Ty Seidule, a retired Army brigadier general and chair of the Congressional Naming Commission, says that Trump’s decision went against the spirit of the new rule enacted after the racial injustice protests in 2020.
“The bottom line is he’s choosing surname over service,” Seidule told Politico. “It is breaking the spirit of a law that was created by the will of the American people through their elected representatives,” Seidule said.
Among the bases to be renamed is Fort Barfoot, the first military base named after a Native American, Army Tech Sgt. Van T. Barfoot. The name will revert to Fort Pickett, named after Confederate General George Pickett. Fort Gregg-Adams was renamed in April 2023 after two Black officers, Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams, but will revert to its original name, Fort Robert E. Lee, named after the Confederate commander who fought to maintain the institution of slavery.
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