Fort Gordon will have a new name by 2024.
Congress set the stage for the name change when it overrode former President Donald Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act on Jan. 1.
Within that act is a sub-section that requires the name of 10 military bases and two Navy ships that bear names associated with the Confederate States of America. Those names have to be changed within three years.
Fort Gordon is named for Confederate Lt. Gen. John B. Gordon who was among Lee’s most trusted officers. Gordon served as a Democratic Georgia senator from 1873 to 1880 and again from 1891 to 1897. He was also governor of Georgia from 1886 until 1890.
The group tasked with completing that process is the newly created Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America..
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The first four members of the commission are Sean McLean of California, a White House official at the time of his appointment; Joshua Whitehouse of New Hampshire, the White House liaison to the Dept. of Defense at the time of his appointment; Anne G. Johnston of North Carolina, acting assistant secretary of Defense for legislative affairs; and Earl Matthews of Pennsylvania, a former acting Army general counsel. President Trump’s Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller appointed the four on Jan. 8, according to a Department of Defense press release from that date.
The other four commission members will be named by the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, according to the bill. They are Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. Jack Reid (D-R.I.) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), each of whom will choose one member.
The commission is tasked to create a plan for removing “all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate . . . “the Confederacy or anyone who served it voluntarily.” Grave markers are the only exemption mentioned in the bill.
According to the bill, commission members are asked not only to create the process for renaming the bases and ships but also to determine the cost of removing not only the offending names but also any symbols, monuments or other objects related to the Confederacy. The act also directs Commission members to consider any “local sensitivities” related to the re-namings.
Commissioners are mandated to brief the House and Senate Armed Services committees on their progress by Oct. 1, 2021. Members are also required to have a plan in place by Oct.1, 2022, or “no later than 90 days before the implementation of” the plan they develop.
Debbie Reddin van Tuyll is Editor-in-chief of The Augusta Press. Reach her at debbie@theaugustapress.com
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