Why are there any Confederate named bases in the first place? These characters were seditious traitors! Not to mention that everything they stood for was against what democracy should be.

I find this shocking.

That's right, I said post. The Army doesn't have bases (well they do but they are small and temporary).

I was assigned to Ft. Polk. Hell, I probably thought it was named after the President. I really didn't care to know the history. What I was concerned about was the apparent glee 2nd Brigade commander had, sending his unit into the field during the various hunting seasons. There is nothing like walking through the woods wearing camo with well armed civilians roaming about looking for deer or turkeys.

Honestly I did. They didn’t have the posts shut off from hunters? Wow.

They were named after traitors.

whose purpose was to declare and embed white supremacy and racial hostility forever. No citizen should have to see those while going about their own nation.

But erasing genuine history is another matter altogether. I'd consider these individually and with restraint. Many Americans, here in the south and elsewhere, had parents and other family who KNEW relatives who served in the Civil War or lived in the areas it took place during that time. It is our history, individually and collectively. And it's not all about racial hatreds.

Btw, I'm reading Jeff Shaara's "Gods and Generals" right now (inspired by the current threats to our union). Robert E. Lee did not go home to Virginia to fight for slavery, but out of loyalty to protect the Commonwealth from the war, and with it his extended family's lives and homes. Although he'd have a lot of catching up to do if reborn in this era, he had been freeing the slaves his wife inherited when her father died, as instructed by his father-in-law's will, and completed the job in 1862.

“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country,” Lee writing to his wife.

When you say Benning -- most will think of officer training and Green Berets
Bragg -- airborne
Polk -- flying cockroaches, mildew, hunters, and (winter was weeks of low 40's high 30's and non-stop rain) suicide.
Lee -- where? There are some Civil War battle sites nearby. Battle of the Crater.
Rucker -- air assault and helicopters

in Alabama, built in the WWII era, named for a Civil War colonel and later industrialist from Alabama? Was he a fine man overdue for recognition for his contributions or was it named that to spite black people and tell them they'd never be accepted and equal?

Also it has to be about how these names are commonly viewed. If largely viewed as monuments to racial division and hatreds, then, yes, they need to be changed. But again, considered individually. We can't and shouldn't try to erase the history of the Confederacy, and that includes the reality that many historic figures were considered honorable people in their era, and that many still should be for reasons just as true in this one.

Lee was on the wrong side and we all know it. Read the documents from the Confederate States about why they succeeded. It was slavery no matter how you spin it.

No to straw man arguments.

Having presumably read the "the documents" you refer to, you must know that the history of the slave era and slave states is the specific antecedent history of most black Americans. Erasing it would be a grave insult and injury to them. Which is exactly why today's white supremacists are constantly "spinning" and/or denying all parts of it that don't fit their revisionist histories.

After nearly 100 years of migration away from the South, there's also been a mass migration of AA "returning" from other parts of the country to the southern states of their families' heritages, areas where most of America's black people have always lived. Most decisions on these issues should be referred to the local residents involved, or in the case of the military arrived at in consultation with their wishes. They are the people who, of course, know what matters to them and why.

... of those oppressive racist traitorous fuckas gone

Having presumably read the "the documents" you refer to, you must know that the history of the slave era and slave states is the specific antecedent history of most black Americans. Erasing it would be a grave insult and injury to them.

... any praise or honor because it doesn't harm everyone equally

No schools, bases, buildings, monuments, statues, nothing.

You commit treason you have zero legacy worthy of tribute.

Jeff is a huge proponent of the Lost Cause philosophy, and isn’t half the writer his father was. Pure garbage.

Finally, maybe all the wretched symbols of the confederacy hopefully will be taken down FOREVER.
People don't realize the confederacy is the foulest example of pure evil this country has ever had. It's equivalent to the NAZI era and should have been treated as such like the Germans did to the NAZI era in their country.

But no, in this country they actually forgave these traitors whereas in any other setting many of them would have been hanged for treason such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

These southern traitors should have forever gone down in INFAMY along with evildoers like Hitler, Stalin, and other well-known world evils.

It shows we can seek to reform what we have done, not to forget the past but to remember it as it was, in reality, and what it meant to black people.

I can't believe we are not in agreement on this issue!

Having been a soldier for 38 years, serving at multiple military installations changing the names of many installations is the right thing to do....we are celebrating Confederate racism/leadership keeping their names on installations. But having served 8 years at Bragg, a year at Benning, 7 years at Jackson and wonderful/painful memories at the Posts will be challenging for many including me. I will always think of Bragg when talking airborne with my buddies, Benning will always be a leadership school with IOBC/IOAC/Ranger school, my first parachute jump, where I retired at Jackson etc.....Great memories, painful names.

The only one of those posts I was at (in my two years of Army) was three months of AIT at Ft Polk. We had a few alternate names for the place, none as nice as "Polk". They can rename it to "Joint Base Trump" for all I care.

Cheers to the good times.

But, this is long overdue, and I hope it happens.