Fort Benning Army Base was named after racist Confederate General, and so were nine other military bases

Fort Benning Army Base was named after racist Confederate General, and so were nine other military bases

From Your Black World

Traitors who instigate insurrection against their country for the right to enslave others do not deserve to be celebrated by the very country they waged war against. Treachery should not be celebrated, but that’s exactly what America is doing by naming 10 U.S. military bases after Confederate generals.

That these men who fought to maintain the “Southern Way of Life” would be remembered by having their names etched on military installations is abominable. Even though these namings reflect choices made after the Civil War to ensure that the union remained in tact, it is still a hard pill to swallow.

The U.S. government still protects the memory and honor of Confederate traitors, but could not muster the nerve to protect Blacks living in the South after the war, many of whom were routinely lynched after the Union agreed to allow the South to have their way with Blacks after the war’s end. Just call them free, then do with them what you wish.

And to boot, these military bases are not some small off the radar military bases that you may not have heard of — they’re major.

From The New York Times:

Fort Benning in Georgia is named for Henry Benning, a State Supreme Court associate justice who became one of Lee’s more effective subordinates. Before the war, this ardent secessionist inflamed fears of abolition, which he predicted would inevitably lead to Black governors, juries, legislatures and more. “Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand for that?” Benning wrote. “We will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth, and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination.”

But even if these naming were good for the preservation of the union back then, what about now? Why do Black men and women need to put their life on the line for this country while living in military installations named after people who would’ve just as well preferred that they remain enslaved. Someone should answer that question. Someone should make it right.