Washington (AFP) - Former president Dwight D. Eisenhower, general Colin Powell and abolitionist Harriet Tubman are among the names under consideration as the US Army moves to rename nine bases honoring military figures of the pro-slavery Civil War South.
The Naming Commission set up by Congress to come up with new names said on its website that it had received more than 34,000 submissions for new names.
All of the bases being renamed are located in Southern states that were part of the Confederacy during the 1861-1865 Civil War.
They include Fort Benning in Georgia, home to the US Army Infantry School, and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, home to the US Special Forces Command and the storied 82nd Airborne Division.
The commission retained 87 names for final consideration including those of Eisenhower, the 34th US president and supreme commander of allied forces in Europe during World War II; Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state; and Tubman, who helped slaves escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Others include General George C. Marshall, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the post-World War II European reconstruction plan that bears his name, and Omar Bradley, another World War II general and the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Several Native Americans are also on the list along with Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated US soldiers of World War II who went on to a career in Hollywood.
Former president Donald Trump opposed the renaming of the bases and vetoed a defense bill creating the commission, but Congress eventually overrode his veto.
