North Carolina’s Fort Bragg renamed to Fort Liberty

Fort Bragg, the US Army base in North Carolina that is among the world’s largest military installations, was formally renamed Fort Liberty on Friday, part of a broader effort to rechristen bases named for Confederate officers.Last year, a commission created by Congress recommended new names for nine bases that honoured Confederate officers, after the nationwide protests following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd prompted the military to re-examine its history through the lens of race.In a video announcing the change, the Army said yesterday that the base is the only one to be named after a value, rather than a person."No value has proven more integral to the United States and the history of its military than liberty,” the video said.Established in 1918, the North Carolina base was originally named for General Braxton Bragg, who served in the Confederate Army during the 19th-century US Civil War.Bragg was an inept Confederate general who was relieved of command after his defeat in the 1863 Battle of Chattanooga.The base houses the Airborne and Special Operations Forces and is home to 53,700 troops, according to its website.The first renaming took place in March. Fort Pickett in Virginia was renamed Fort Barfoot in honour of a decorated Native American soldier, Colonel Van T Barfoot, a World War II Medal of Honour recipient.That base was previously named for Confederate Major-General George Pickett, whose failed assault on Union troops during the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg became known as "Pickett’s Charge”.In the National Defence Authorisation Act for 2021, Congress required the establishment of a commission to plan for the removal of Confederate-linked "names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia” from Defence Department property, and gave the Pentagon chief three years to carry out its recommendations.Former president Donald Trump opposed the renaming effort, tweeting in 2020 that his administration "will not even consider” changing the names of the bases.He vetoed the defence bill in December 2020, but Congress overrode it in a blow to Trump, who by then had lost his re-election bid to Joe Biden.