Defense Commission Recommends Removal of Klan Display at West Point

[Webster]

(The Guardian) A bronze plaque commemorating the Ku Klux Klan should be removed from the science centre at West Point, a congressional commission said, even though it falls outside the panel’s remit because the racist terror group was formed after the American civil war.

The Naming Commission was established in March 2021, in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd and the protests for racial justice it inspired. The eight-member panel is tasked with recommending which US military assets should be renamed, to remove associations with Confederates who fought to maintain slavery.

In May, the commissioners released part one of their report, concerning the renaming of military bases – a process opposed by conservatives including Donald Trump.

For one example, the commission said Fort Benning, a major infantry base in Georgia named for a Confederate general, should be renamed Fort Hal and Julie Moore, after a Vietnam-era soldier and his wife, who changed the way the US army notifies next of kin when soldiers die in combat.

In part two of its report, published this week, the commission considered the US Military Academy, at West Point in New York, and the US Naval Academy, at Annapolis in Maryland.

Regarding West Point, the report said: “On the triptych at the entrance to Bartlett Hall, there is a mounted marker bearing the words, ‘Ku Klux Klan’. The marker falls outside the remit of the commission. However, there are clearly ties in the KKK to the Confederacy.”

The Klan was founded in Tennessee in 1865, in the aftermath of the defeat of the slave-holding south. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a general whose troops massacred Black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow in April 1864, was one of the first Klan leaders.'