President Trump announced on Tuesday that the Pentagon will restore the names of the seven remaining military installations named after Confederate generals, after two were reverted earlier this year.
“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Picket, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rutger, Fort Poke, Fort AP Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at a celebration of the Army’s 250th anniversary at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The bases are now known as Fort Barfoot in Virginia, Fort Cazavos in Texas, Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, Fort Novosel in Alabama, Fort Johnson in Louisiana, Fort Walker in Virginia, and Fort Gregg-Adams, all in Virginia.
“It is not time to change,” Trump told the audience. “And I am superstitious, you know? I like to keep things going, right?”
The promise fulfills Trump’s campaign pledge to return bases to their original names after a Congressionally mandated commission recommended new titles for nine military bases in 2022.
Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that the names of two bases, Fort Liberty and Fort Moore, be changed back to Fort Bragg and Fort Benning.
Hegseth reinstated the original names, but explained that they were now being used to honor different individuals rather than the Confederate generals for whom they were named originally.
Fort Bragg is named after Private First Class Roland Bragg, a decorated Army paratrooper who served in World War II, rather than Confederate General Braxton Bragg, who lost several costly Civil War battles before leaving the service to run a sugar plantation with slaves. Hegseth ordered the change in February.
Fort Benning, meanwhile, honors Cpl. Fred G. Benning, who received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during World War I while serving with the United States Army in France. The base was originally named after Lt. Gen. Henry Benning, a Confederate general who opposed slavery.
The Pentagon chief made the change in March, removing the moniker intended to honor Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julie Moore, who dedicated their lives to the Army and military families, most notably by establishing survivor support networks and casualty notification teams that are still used today.
The changes come after more than five years of political tug-of-war to rid military installations of Confederate names, which began in late 2020 when the annual defense authorization bill prohibited the Defense Department from naming assets after Confederate symbols.
At the time, Trump, who was nearing the end of his first term, vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), citing the base-renaming provision, but Congress overrode the veto.
That was followed by the 2021 NDAA, which established a commission to recommend new names for the nine military bases, with the installations receiving their new titles in ceremonies throughout 2023.