In May 2020, Fayetteville native George Floyd was killed when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the Black man’s neck for 9 minutes and 30 seconds. A video capturing the murder went viral, and protests erupted across the country, including here in Fayetteville.
Floyd’s death spurred a racial reckoning nationwide not seen since the civil rights era in the 1960s, when Martin Luther King Jr. marched on Washington and gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
That racial reckoning led not only to the murder conviction of Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, but also led to bans on police chokeholds in some states; the removal of Confederate monuments, including in Fayetteville; and eventually the decision to rename military installations honoring the Confederacy.
The change was mandated by Congress in 2021, and a renaming commission was formed to find new names for the nine military installations whose names paid homage to the Confederacy.
Among those installations is neighboring Fort Bragg, named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. Come June 2, that will change as the base will be known as Fort Liberty. As a result, Fayetteville and the surrounding area will take on a new identity.
For some, the name Bragg will be missed.
“I understand the reasoning behind the change, and I have to accept it because it’s what the elected leadership has determined is in the best interest,” said Cumberland County Commissioner Jimmy Keefe. “But I hate that so many people who have had positive experiences at Fort Bragg, who have had children born there, weddings there, that they will no longer have that tether of Fort Bragg in the name.”
For others — like Jack Pines, an Army veteran who served more than 32 years — the change is welcome as a step toward leaving behind a racist past.
“Do we want to celebrate a guy that decides he wants to own other people?” asked Pines, 74.
“Personally, as a Black person, I don’t want to walk in a building called Braxton Bragg,” Pines continued. “Braxton Bragg had no love for me or my people or my ancestors.”
Despite how wary people may be, the name will change, and for some the name “Liberty” fits.
“Since we have to rename it, it's the perfect name. It’s not named for someone. It’s named for an idea, a goal that’s always out in front of us,” said Fayetteville Mayor Pro Tem Johnny Dawkins. “It's an attitude. It just encompasses so much, and it touches people in a different way.”
‘How can anyone be against liberty?’
CityView spoke with elected officials about the name change. While many are not enthusiastic about the change, they embraced the new name itself, as it doesn’t honor any one person, unlike the eight other bases that are being renamed.
“I don’t care what you name it after. All people are flawed in some way or another, and I do appreciate the wisdom of naming the base after a phrase of liberty or honor. I do like the relationship between liberty of the Special Forces motto and the liberation of so many people that Fort Bragg soldiers had a part in,” Keefe said. “My preference would have been that Fort Bragg not be remained, but Fort Liberty is a good name.”
Fayetteville City Council member Kathy Jensen was on a local committee that considered new names for the base. She said a consensus formed around Fort Liberty.
“It was very impressive to see everybody there stand up and say ‘We support Fort Liberty,’” Jensen said.
Councilman Deno Hondros said picking one person over another would have been too difficult a task.
“There’s a lot of humans that deserve things being named in their honor. There are just so many heroes that have come through Fort Bragg. Which one are you going to pick? How can you pick this hero over that hero?” Hondros said.
He said no one should be opposed to Fort Liberty as a name.
“We’re all creatures of habit. I’m a creature of habit, and sometimes, I’m more resistant to change than maybe I should be,” Hondros said. “If you’re going to rename it something, I think it was a wise choice in Fort Liberty. How can anyone be against liberty?”
‘That was their college’
Local elected officials told CityView that some sentimental value may be lost with the name change.
“If you’re a native and lived here all your life, or you’ve lived here with a majority of your life, and you’ve always known it as Fort Bragg, it’s got some sentimental value,” Hondros said. “Anybody that’s served there, I’m sure it’s got sentimental value, memories of the name and their family members, a lot of sacrifice.”
Keefe, who said both the original naming and the renaming were political decisions, said many came of age at Fort Bragg and see it as their college experience.
“Political moves are part of it. It was a political move to name it Camp Bragg, and now it's a political move to name it Fort Liberty,” Keefe said. “For many soldiers, that was their college. They learned as a young person the ways of life at Fort Bragg.”
Regardless of any name change or sentimental value, Fayetteville, for Hondros, will always be tied to the military community.
“We’re the largest neighbor to the largest military isolation in the world,” Hondros said. “We can’t forget when we’re in trouble and we need a first responder, we call 911. When the president of the United States or our allies around the world are in trouble, they don’t call 911; they call 910.”
Response from veterans
CityView spoke with Army veterans and those with family ties to the military about the name change. They had conflicting views on the issue.
Levert Wade, whose husband and others in her immediate family served in the military, said the name “Bragg” is a part of history.
“I know why, but it’s still a part of history,” said Wade, 62. “So I don’t see why, if we’re reading about history in history books and learning about certain things, why should it be offensive?”
Yvette Bell, a 27-year retired Army veteran, said the change is erasing history.
“I understand the underlying reason for doing it, but the problem is, we can’t erase history. And when you start taking away names and you start taking away statues, you’re actually erasing history. If it’s not there, how will the children learn about it?” said Bell, 54.
For Pines, that’s not history worth preserving.
“They fought to defend slavery,” Pines said. “Is that the history you want to preserve?”
Response from business community
Back in December, the Hudson Automotive Group bought a few dealerships in Fayetteville. Among them was Crown Ford of Fayetteville. Afterward, the new owners renamed it Liberty Ford of Fayetteville.
“We decided to come up with Liberty Ford so when they transition, we were ready,” said Mike Kane, Hudson regional operations manager. “We wanted to be more of a part of the community here with all of the military.”
Steven Moore, the military affairs council chairman at the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, said his council supports Fort Bragg leadership through the name change.
“As a council, we’re very supportive of what Fort Bragg is doing, and anything that’s important to their leaders at Fort Bragg is important to us,” Moore said.
Mayor Pro Tem Dawkins said, with soon-to-be Fort Liberty being such a major economic driver in the area, that the city of Fayetteville supports the base throughout the renaming process and beyond.
“Fort Bragg/Liberty is our largest economic engine in North Carolina,” Dawkins said. “So whatever Fort Liberty wants is what we want.”
Ben Sessoms covers Fayetteville and education for CityView. He can be reached at bsessoms@cityviewnc.com.
