As part of a story (here) about a Ku Klux Klan plaque that still adorns West Point’s science building (WHY????), CNN said, “The renaming of bases with Confederate monikers has been a years-long process. It first became a hot button political issue in the final months of the Trump administration, when then-President Donald Trump blasted the idea, accusing others of wanting to ‘throw those names away.'” (See article here.)
Damn right we want to “throw those names away.” They were violent insurrections who killed Americans to preserve slavery. But school children should be taught the truth about this history, so names like Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg, and Leonidas Polk (for others, see list here) should still appear in textbooks and learning materials, in appropriate context, of course.
But they shouldn’t adorn military bases, nor should the many Confederate monuments erected throughout the South in the early 1900s by segregationists to intimidate black populations remain in public squares.
Defenders of Confederate monuments and military base names say they want to preserve “Southern heritage.” It’s not our heritage, it’s their heritage, and of course they do because they’re white supremacists.
Their “heritage” consists of traitors who traded in ballots for bullets, and killed real Americans to preserve the evil of slavery. We should’nt pander to these people on any account.
That plaque should be removed, those bases renamed, and those monuments taken down post haste. If someone doesn’t like it, they can suck on it. We should have no patience with them.
Renaming bases, which is opposed by Trump, America’s last Confederate president, is gaining traction on U.S. President Biden’s watch. If the naming commission’s recommendations are adopted, the Army infantry training base at Fort Benning will become Fort Moore, in honor of Hal Moore of “We Were Soldiers Once” fame. Fort Bragg will become Fort Liberty, and Fort Polk will become Fort Johnson, named after William Henry Johnson.
Leonidas Polk (1806-1864) was a slave-owning planter and bishop of a pro-slavery breakaway Episcopal denomination before the Civil War who became a Confederate general in command of southern troops at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and in other campaigns. Wikipedia says he “is remembered for his bitter disagreements with … General Braxton Bragg …, and for his general lack of success in combat.” His best service to America and humankind was getting killed, which I suppose is why post-Civil War southern sympathizers insisted on naming a U.S. Army base after this otherwise useless insurrectionist.
Johnson (1892-1929), a North Carolina Negro, distinguished himself in May 1918 during the Battle of the Argonne Forest by single-handedly repelling a German raiding party, sustaining 21 wounds in the process. Johnson survived the war, but died a few years later, poor and in ill health. It took 78 years for his supporters to pry a Purple Heart out of the Army for him, a standard-issue medal for combat wounds, and 97 years before his heroism was acknowledged with the Medal of Honor.
Fort Polk was built for World War 2, beginning in 1941, and it has taken over 80 years to get CSA Gen. Polk’s name off it, and we’re still waiting; for now it’s still Fort Polk, not Fort Johnson. The West Point plaque commemorates a terrorist group that murdered thousands of black people. It’s roughly equivalent to putting up a plaque honoring Al Qaeda in the rebuilt World Trade Center. To say it doesn’t belong there is a gross understatement.
Republicans bitterly oppose removing Confederate monuments, which is why they’re still there. Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who wants to be president, has threatened to jail teachers for teaching schoolchildren about history that might make white people feel bad if it’s mentioned. If he achieves his ambitions, Trump might not be America’s last Confederate president after all.
Photo below: On the same day George Floyd was buried in 2020, GOP legislators voted against removing this bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Ku Klux Klan founder, from Tennessee’s state capitol building (see story here)
