The Trump administration will officially reinstate the name of an Army base in North Carolina on Friday to Fort Bragg, which was originally named for an incompetent Confederate general who owned enslaved people.
The base’s name was changed to Fort Liberty in June 2023 as part of the U.S. military’s examination of its history with race. But President Trump campaigned on a promise to restore the old name.
The official ceremony at the military base on Friday will cement a political victory for Mr. Trump, who suffered a legislative defeat in 2020 when Congress pushed past his veto of a bill with a provision to rename nine Army bases that had honored treasonous Confederate generals who fought against the United States to preserve slavery and white supremacy.
The original naming of those bases was part of a movement to glorify the Confederacy and advance the Lost Cause myth that the Civil War was fought over “states’ rights” and not slavery.
The reversion of Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg is part of a larger effort by Mr. Trump to purge the military of top officers, diversity initiatives, transgender service members and other things that he said had made the armed forces “woke.”
A commission established by Congress to rename the bases, composed of retired military officers and a Republican congressman, chose to rename eight of the nine bases for some of the Army’s most distinguished heroes, noting that many of the hundreds of candidates being considered “embody the best of the United States Army” and “represent the diverse kinds of servicemen that have long made our Army great.”
“We were reminded that courage has no boundaries by categories of race, color, gender, religion, or creed,” the retired Adm. Michelle J. Howard, the chair of the commission and the first woman in the Navy to become a four-star admiral, wrote at the time.
Unlike the other eight bases, Fort Bragg was renamed “in commemoration of the American value of liberty.”
The 2020 law — the only legislation that Congress passed by overriding Mr. Trump’s veto during his first term — established the naming commission and mandated that the military “remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate” Confederates or the Confederacy.
But Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly defended monuments honoring Confederates, had vowed during the 2024 campaign to revert the name to honor Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who was widely considered by his fellow Confederates and many historians to have been a poor commander.
Vice President JD Vance had also falsely claimed while campaigning near the base last year that Vice President Kamala Harris had directed the changing of the name of the base to Fort Liberty during the Biden administration.
“It’s Fort Bragg, and we’re proud,” Mr. Vance said in Raeford, N.C., in October.
Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the base for another Bragg: Pvt. Roland L. Bragg, who had served at Fort Bragg and was awarded a Silver Star and the Purple Heart during World War II.
On Monday, Mr. Hegseth expanded the renaming effort, reverting Fort Moore — renamed in 2023 for Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and his wife, Julia — to Fort Benning, which was originally named for Henry L. Benning, a white supremacist who pushed for Georgia to secede from the United States and fought for the Confederacy to prevent the abolition of slaves.
Mr. Hegseth again selected an honoree who had the same name, saying that the base was being renamed for Cpl. Fred G. Benning, a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross who served during World War I.
The cost of renaming the nine Army bases was estimated at about $39 million, covering expenses like replacing the signage and removing old references to the bases’ outdated names. Reverting to the original would most likely also cost millions. Businesses and street signs near Fort Bragg in nearby Fayetteville, N.C., still referred to Fort Liberty on Thursday and Friday.
