The United States on Friday renamed a military base named after a general who fought on the side of the slave Confederate states during the American Civil War to instead give it the name of a heroic Native American colonel.
This facility of the American National Guard, located in the state of Virginia not far from Washington (east), is no longer called Fort Pickett, but that of the joint training center Fort Barfoot.
Eight other military bases named after Confederate officers are also slated to change names soon.
“Today we honor Col. Van Barfoot, a World War II veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and longtime resident of Virginia,” said base commander Col. James Shaver during a ceremony at the site.
This medal, the highest American military decoration, had been awarded to Van Barfoot for his exploits during World War II: he notably knocked out two German machine guns, captured 17 enemy soldiers, destroyed a tank and an artillery piece, and rescued wounded troops in Italy 1944.
He then served in Korea and Vietnam, ending his career with the rank of colonel.
This base “will be the first Army base on American soil outside of overseas territories to bear the name of a Native American soldier,” Colonel Shaver said, referring to Van Barfoot’s membership of the Chactas, an indigenous tribe in the southern United States.
Members of his family were present at Friday’s ceremony.
The base previously bore the name of Confederate General George Pickett, who became famous for leading a suicide bombing attack on orders from his superiors during the American Civil War (1861-1865) during the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, which the US won Anti-Unionist -Slavery Army.
More than half of his soldiers had lost their lives there, but he had survived.
Following the May 2020 death of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer who provoked a large anti-racist movement and accentuated the questioning of Confederate symbols, calls for renaming these military installations and other sites in honor of the Confederate generals of America intensified slave past.
In 2021, Congress asked the Department of Defense to set up a commission responsible for proposing new names for these bases, overriding a veto by Donald Trump.
The president of the local section of the civil rights organization NAACP, Robert Barnette, hailed AFP on Friday as “a step in the right direction”.