Charlottesville Leads To Increased Call To Strip NYC Of Confederate Honors

BROOKLYN, NY — Clashes at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a woman dead and the nation reeling have renewed commitment to remove the names of Confederate generals from Brooklyn streets.

The weekend's rally, prompted by plans there to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, resulted in a car being sped into a crowd of anti-fascism protesters, killing Heather Heyer, 32.

It happened just a month after the U.S. Army rejected a push to remove the names of Lee and another top general in the rebellion, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, from two streets on the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn. Local leaders said the events in Virginia – and President Donald Trump's reaction to them – have made them more determined to get rid of the Confederate presence in the borough.

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Trump, at a wild press conference Tuesday, defended right wing protesters and said their opponents were partly to blame for the clashes.

"What occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, was an act of domestic terrorism committed by white supremacists whose despicable beliefs represent the worst of American history,” said U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D - Brooklyn) who led the campaign to rename the Fort Hamilton streets.

“I will continue my fight to remove the name of this Confederate general as well as that of Stonewall Jackson from the streets of Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York, and eliminate this insult to the descendants of women and men who were held in bondage.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined calls to rename the streets.

"Symbols of slavery and racism have no place in New York," Cuomo wrote in a letter to the Army. "In our state, we condemn the language and violence of white supremacy in no uncertain terms. Unlike President Trump, we stand together to say that there are not many sides to hatred and bigotry; they do not belong in our communities and must be denounced for what they are.

"Renaming these streets will send a clear message that in New York, we stand against intolerance and racism, whether it be insidious and hidden or obvious and intentional."

The Army had said earlier this summer that it would not rename General Lee Avenue and Stonewall Jackson Drive because the men are honored "as individuals, not as representatives of any particular cause or ideology."

Local leaders protested outside of Fort Hamilton on Tuesday.

"We are demanding the removal of these names because we need to make sure we are taking the small steps to treating everyone with dignity and respect," Rev. Khader El-Yateem, a Democratic candidate for city council, said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A small plaque at a nearby church honoring Robert E. Lee underneath a tree he planted while serving on the Army base was removed Wednesday.

Clarke and three other U.S. representatives from Brooklyn wrote to the Army in June demanding that the streets be renamed.

In response, a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Diane M. Randon said changing the names would be "controversial and divisive" and contrary to the "spirit of reconciliation" the Army had when naming the streets in the first place. That decision was cheered by some on the right who want to keep Confederate memorials in place.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams strongly disagreed with the decision.

"We will stand up to the hate we saw in #Charlottesville, here in Brooklyn & across this nation," he tweeted on Monday.

"For the Army, a response that the street naming was a way for everyone to come together and reconcile, I think they’re really out of the loop of what the pain of that street represents," he told the Wall Street Journal. "The Confederate flag is African-Americans’ swastika."

Patch has reached out to an Army spokesperson for comment, and we'll update this story if we hear back.

Image via JeffreyW75, used under GNU Free Documentation License