(Washington) The United States will rename nine of its military bases named after Confederate officers by early 2024, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Thursday.
Posted yesterday at 8:59 p.m.
The 2021 Defense Budget had created a commission to propose new names for these bases, and gave the department three years to implement its recommendations.
“I am committed to implementing all of the commission’s recommendations as soon as possible,” Lloyd Austin said in a memo on Thursday, adding that this would happen “no later than 1er January 2024.”
“The names of these infrastructures and facilities should […] reflect the history and values of the United States, and pay homage to the best of the republic that we are all sworn to protect, ”also writes the Secretary of Defense.
These bases, such as Fort Benning in Georgia or Fort Bragg in North Carolina, are all located in the southern United States, and pay tribute to Confederate generals, who fought in defense of slavery during the Civil War ( 1861-1865).
The death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, killed by a white police officer, had caused awareness and reignited the debate around places paying tribute to Confederate generals.
Former Republican President Donald Trump had thus vetoed the defense budget in 2020 providing for the creation of the commission, a veto finally overridden by Congress.