Pressure Mounts To Rename Army Bases That Honor Confederate Officers
Many U.S. military bases in the South are named after Confederate offciers. Now protests over treatment of African Americans are prompting a new call to change those names.
It was the summer of 1917. America had declared war on Germany a few months earlier, and young men were streaming into the Army by the tens of thousands.
So the U.S. War Department rushed to create new camps and bases around the country for all the soldiers who would soon go to war. A July 2 memo to the Army Chief of Staff spelled out how to choose names for the new facilities. It was titled: "Names for cantonments, National Army, and camps, National Guard."
The memo said the bases and camps
