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The iconic Fort Bragg in North Carolina underwent a big change in 2023 when it was renamed Fort Liberty. But less than two years later one of the largest military complexes in the world could see change again.
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on changing the name back to Fort Bragg.
The sprawling military post first opened in 1918. It was named for North Carolina native Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who was not popular.
“His own troops tried to kill him in the Mexican [-American] War. He was thoroughly loathed by his soldiers in the Civil War, and he almost always lost,” retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule said. Seidule is a professor at Hamilton College, and he is coming out with a book about the military bases that received new names.
In 2020, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, Congress ordered a plan to rename any military posts and federal assets that honored Confederate leaders. The military then followed through.
“The thing the military understands is when it’s given a mission by Congress it’s going to execute it,” said Seidule, who served as the vice-chair of the commission that oversaw the renaming of nine military installations.
The commission spent nearly two years combing through thousands of names sent in by the public, and met with the communities of each of the nine military posts named after Confederate generals, before they settled on the new names.
Fort Bragg was changed to Fort Liberty and was the only base that wasn’t named after a specific person.
“They suggested ‘Liberty’ because it was the first line of the song of the 82nd Airborne Division. ‘We’re soldiers of liberty.’ Also, the special forces, it’s in their motto. And a gold star mother said this united us. And they were very united behind that name,” Seidule said.
Changing Fort Bragg’s name cost more than $6 million, and for all the bases it was estimated to be more than $20 million.
Despite Trump’s campaign promise to change Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg, he may not be able to do it by executive action.
“I’m not a lawyer … but there was the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 that said nothing could be named after a Confederate, so I don’t know if they could rename it after a Confederate without changing that law,” Seidule said.
Spectrum News reached out to Trump’s transition team for a statement regarding how and when he would try and revert Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg but did not hear back.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, was reported by CNN to have previously said the bases that got new names should be changed back.
