The congressional commission reviewing Pentagon property honoring the Confederacy is recommending renaming facilities and removing depictions dedicated to Robert E. Lee and other leaders at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy.
The Naming Commission, in its second report to Congress, focused on the two service academies after recommending new names in May for Army bases stretching from Texas to Virginia that honor Confederate officers.
The biggest changes in the new round are set for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where multiple buildings and other facilities are named for Lee, who served as superintendent before leading the Confederate Army during the Civil War.
That includes Lee Barracks, where cadets are housed, a day care center, a road, a gate and a portrait that hangs in Jefferson Hall of Lee wearing his Confederate uniform.
POLITICO first reported in June that the famous portrait would be singled out by the bipartisan commission for removal.
“The Commissioners do not make these recommendations with any intention of ‘erasing history,” its new report released on Monday states. “The facts of the past remain and the commissioners are confident the history of the Civil War will continue to be taught at all service academies with all the quality and complex detail our national past deserves.
“Rather, they make these recommendations to affirm West Point’s long tradition of educating future generations of America’s military leaders to represent the best of our national ideals,” it adds.
Other Confederate generals who will no longer be honored on the campus include P.G.T. Beauregard, who led the attack on Fort Sumter that marked the opening of the Civil War, and William Hardee, another former superintendent who fought for the Confederacy.
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