By Brad Brooks and Idrees Ali
(Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday renamed the Army base Fort Liberty back to its original name of Fort Bragg, according to a Department of Defense statement, undoing a 2023 name change driven by racial justice protests.
The base, among the world’s largest military installations, had been renamed Fort Liberty as part of an effort to rechristen bases named for Confederate officers.
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The move to shed Confederate names for military bases came in the wake of nationwide protests after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“That’s right, Bragg is back,” Hegseth said upon signing a memo ordering the name change, according to a video posted on the Department of Defense’s website.
President Donald Trump had said during a campaign stop last year in North Carolina that he wanted to change the base’s name back to Fort Bragg, according to local media reports.
Congress in 2021 passed legislation forbidding the naming of bases after anyone who voluntarily served or held leadership in the Confederate States of America, the breakaway republic of Southern states that fought against the U.S. in the Civil War in the 19th Century.
Established in 1918, the North Carolina base was originally named for General Braxton Bragg, who served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. It houses the Airborne and Special Operations Forces and is home to 57,000 troops, according to its website.
Hegseth sidestepped Congress’ provision banning Confederate names by officially renaming Fort Bragg after Private First Class Roland Bragg, who “served with great distinction during World War II,” according the memo ordering the name change.
The renaming of Fort Bragg honors all U.S. soldiers who have trained to fight and win U.S. wars, Hegseth wrote in his memo, “and is in keeping with the installation’s esteemed and storied history.”
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
