Status: Active

Established: January 1st, 1941

Named For: Lieutenant General Leonidas Polk

The National Defense Authorization Act conference report, released December 3, 2020, includes a requirement that the bases be renamed within the next three years -- and that all "names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America" also be stricken. It also provides detailed plans for a commission that would execute this plan and work with local communities to determine fitting new names for the bases.

While the purge of confederate names includes everything from bases to ships, planes and streets, there's one defined exception: grave markers are exempted from the new legislation. "Congress expects the commission to further define what constitutes a grave marker," the bill states.

"National security isn't simply defined by the planes and ships we buy -- but in the values we set for our military and ourselves," Brown, a Democrat and a prominent proponent of the renaming effort, said. "We cannot ask today's young servicewomen and men to defend our nation, while housing and training them and their families on bases honoring those who betrayed our country in order to enslave others." - Maryland Rep. Anthony Brown, Vice Vhairman of the House Armed Services Committee