Pentagon chief restores name of Fort Benning, sidesteps Congressional provision

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary on Monday ordered the U.S. Army to rename Fort Moore back to its original name of Fort Benning, undoing a 2023 name change that was driven by racial justice protests.

By ordering that the base be named after Corporal Fred Benning, who served in World War One, Hegseth was able to sidestep a Congressional provision that banned bases having Confederate names.

The base was originally named after Brigadier General Henry Benning, a Confederate who defended slavery.

Spread out over 182,000 acres near Columbus, Georgia, the base has more than 120,000 active-duty troops, family members, civilians and reservists.

In a memo, Hegseth said that the renaming after Corporal Benning "honors the warfighter ethos and recognizes the heroes who have trained at the installation for decades."

The memo said that Corporal Benning had received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions during World War One with the U.S. Army in France.

Last month, Hegseth ordered that Fort Liberty go back to its original name of Fort Bragg.

On his first day as defense secretary, Hegseth referred to Fort Moore and Fort Liberty by their previous names while speaking with reporters.

The 2023 move to shed Confederate names for military bases came in the wake of nationwide protests after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Confederate flags and base names can be offensive to many Americans, who see them as reminders of the enslavement of Black Americans and symbols of white supremacy.

Congress in 2021 passed legislation forbidding the naming of bases after anyone who voluntarily served or held leadership in the Confederate States of America, the breakaway republic of Southern states that fought against the U.S. in the Civil War in the 19th Century.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Alistair Bell)