This was prompted by listening to the Clay Cane Show on SiriusXM
Let’s get something straight, the Confederacy lost.
Not just on the battlefield, but morally, historically, and spiritually. They lost.
But if you’ve looked around at street signs, military bases, schools, statues, and state flags over the last 100 years, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise. In fact, for over a century, America has let the losers write the story.
That’s not an accident. It was policy.
The Bases That Never Made Sense
Why were U.S. military bases ever named after Confederate generals in the first place? Why did we honor men who took up arms against the United States?
The answer? Jim Crow.
During World War I and World War II, as the military scrambled to expand and train troops in the South, they needed land, labor, and political support. Southern white lawmakers gave it—on one condition: you name those bases after “our boys.” The ones who fought for the Confederacy. The ones who defended slavery. The ones who believed the South had the right to own Black bodies.
And so, it was done.
- Fort Bragg for Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general who couldn’t even win most of his battles.
- Fort Hood for John Bell Hood, who left troops dead and disorganized.
- Fort Benning, Fort Lee, Fort Polk, and others—all monuments to men who waged war to keep Black people enslaved.
These weren’t chosen for military excellence. They were chosen because they were white, Southern, and treasonous—but more importantly, because they sent a message: you may be free now, but we’re still in charge.
The Lost Cause Was Always a Lie
This lie—the Lost Cause—is America’s original fan fiction. A fantasy version of the Civil War that paints Confederate generals as noble defenders of “states’ rights” and Southern honor. It shows up in schoolbooks, in monuments, in how they talk about the war as “brother against brother,” as if one brother wasn’t literally fighting for the right to own people.
The Lost Cause didn’t just distort the past—it weaponized it.
It was used to justify segregation, lynching, voter suppression, and every manner of anti-Black violence. And naming U.S. Army bases after Confederate generals was just another way to institutionalize white supremacy, with federal dollars and government stamps of approval.
Correcting the Record: The 2023 Renaming
In 2021, Congress finally said enough.
A bipartisan commission was created to remove Confederate names from U.S. military property, and under the Biden administration, the changes were carried out.
Let’s talk about the real heroes who replaced them:
- Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) – Not a person, but a principle. A commitment to what we say we fight for.
- Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood) – Named for Gen. Richard Cavazos, a Mexican American who earned the Distinguished Service Cross in both Korea and Vietnam.
- Fort Gregg-Adams (formerly Fort Lee) – Honors two Black pioneers: Lt. Gen. Arthur Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams. Adams led the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion—the only all-Black female battalion deployed overseas in WWII, which I never knew anything about until watching Tyler Perry’s, The Six Triple Eight.
- Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) – Named for Hal Moore and his wife Julia, a military family that fought not just in combat but for dignity, equity, and reform.
- Fort Johnson, Fort Barfoot, Fort Walker, and others followed suit, each honoring soldiers who actually served this country with valor.
These weren’t names plucked from nowhere. They were names that had been ignored, overlooked, or intentionally buried beneath the weight of white nostalgia.
Here Come the Losers (Again)
Now, in a political climate soaked with white grievance and fake patriotism, the losers are trying to make a comeback. Not with Confederate flags, but with legal loopholes and semantic gymnastics.
Some lawmakers and pundits are readty to “restore” old base names under the guise of honoring other people with the same last names. For example, Private Roland Bragg, a World War II soldier with the same last name as Braxton Bragg, is now being floated as the “real” namesake of Fort Bragg—when it’s renamed.
Let’s be clear: this is a con job. A cultural bait-and-switch. They know damn well the original names honored Confederates. But they’re betting the public won’t care if they repackage the racism in cleaner wrapping paper.
This isn’t about heritage—it’s about hegemony.
It’s about white nationalism trying to reclaim sacred ground, about erasing Black contributions to history, and about reinstating Confederate ghosts with new IDs.
We’ve seen the pattern before. Books banned. Curriculum whitewashed. Black history labeled “divisive.” Slavery reframed as a job training program.
And behind it all, the same whispered phrase: “The South will rise again.”
The Illusion of White Joy: Claiming Victory Through Holidays
In Alabama and a few other Southern states, Confederate Memorial Day is still a paid state holiday. Every April, state offices close in solemn tribute to those who took up arms to preserve slavery. And every January, Robert E. Lee Day is celebrated on the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a deliberate contradiction written in the calendar. One man fought for freedom, the other fought to stop it. And yet, they share the same date.
This isn’t just historical confusion, it’s cultural warfare.
These holidays exist not to remember, but to reassert. They are part of a broader white nationalist strategy to center white pride, even in loss, and overshadow Black joy at every turn. They want the myth of Lee to match the legacy of King. They want the lie of Confederate valor to sit beside the truth of civil rights struggle. They want to claim victory—even when they lost.
Confederate Memorial Day is not about honoring the dead. It’s about reviving the lie. That the Confederacy stood for something noble. That the war was about heritage. That whiteness is always right—even when it’s defeated.
This is the only kind of “white joy” some folks know:
The kind built on someone else’s erasure.
The kind that tries to pass off defeat as legacy, grievance as glory, and lies as tradition.
And when that doesn’t work, they find new ways to spin the story—like pretending Fort Bragg was named for a different Bragg, or gutting school curriculums that dare mention slavery, or banning books that say Black people have always fought back.
Because they know what we know:
Black joy is evidence of survival.
It is the loudest refutation of their defeat.
But Here’s the Thing—We Already Won
They lost.
Not just the war, but the right to be called heroes.
They lost the moral high ground, the narrative, the future.
The winners of the Civil War weren’t the generals in gold braid or the presidents making deals. The winners were the ones who believed this country could be more than a plantation. The ones who knew freedom wasn’t just a word—it was a fight.
The winners were the Black soldiers who fought for a flag that barely recognized them.
The immigrants who joined the cause, chasing the promise of liberty.
The freedom fighters, the women who marched, who nursed, who resisted.
The ones whose names were never meant to be etched into stone or sewn onto uniforms.
Until now.
If you believe America is better than its past, then say their names:
- Gregg.
- Adams.
- Cavazos.
- Tubman.
- Milk.
Write them down.
Teach their stories.
Put their names in your children’s mouths.
Removal is not erasure.
Let’s choose to tell the truth out loud, even when the lie has had a 100-year head start.
The Confederacy does not deserve our honor.
It doesn’t. It never did.
And the only people who need it remembered are the ones still trying to win a war they have already lost.
