Trump Restores Confederate-Era Names to Seven Army Bases at a Fort Bragg Rally

Speaking to soldiers at Fort Bragg on June 10, 2025 during the Army's 250th anniversary events, Trump announced that seven installations renamed under a bipartisan congressional process would revert to their earlier names: Fort Pickett and Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Gordon in Georgia, Fort Rucker in Alabama, Fort Polk in Louisiana, and Fort Lee in Virginia. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act barred the Defense Department from naming assets after people who served the Confederacy, and a congressionally chartered commission had selected the replacement names. The Army worked around the statute by declaring that the restored names honor different service members who share the same surnames, the same device used earlier in 2025 to return Fort Bragg and Fort Benning to their old names.

The maneuver preserves the letter of a statute while reversing its purpose, and it does so by administrative fiat over a naming process Congress deliberately routed through an independent commission. It also placed a partisan political statement at a uniformed Army ceremony.

The Army began implementing the changes within days of the announcement.