West Point, the United States Military Academy, has a plaque with the name Ku Klux Klan displayed with a hooded figure displayed at the entry to Bartlett Hall, the science place on the tactical institute’s grounds.
The Commission, which was laid out by Congress to give suggestions to the Department of Defense on renaming Confederate markers on US army bases, delivered their second of three last reports to Congress on Monday. The report focused on the Confederate markers at both West Point in New York and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
The commission said the plaque “falls outside” of its purview because the commission is exclusively entrusted with recognizing and giving suggestions on new names to Confederate markers at army bases. The Ku Klux Klan was founded after the Civil War by Confederate veterans. They are still active these days although they mostly work underground, the group is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The commission encouraged the Secretary of Defense “to address DoD assets that highlight the K.K.K.” and “create a standard disposition requirement for such assets,” as per the report. The marker that incorporates the words Ku Klux Klan is a piece of a bigger part of fine art, called a triptych painting, that shows up at the entry of Barrett Hall, the grounds’ Science building. The triptych painting “references the history of the United States as told in bronze relief,” and has three panels, that are all 11 feet by 5 feet, the Academy’s Public Affairs office said in an explanation. They say that it is nothing more than art that was created inspired by the events that were taken place back then.
The fine art that shows the Ku Klux Klan part is in a “small section” on the subsequent board named “One Nation, Under God, Indivisible.” As per the Academy’s Public Affairs office, the three-panel painting’s late stone worker, Laura Gardin Fraser, wanted the painting to be true to the times they were in back then and depict principal events that were both tragic and good.
A statement given by the Public Affairs office said: “West Point does not accept, condone, or promote racism, sexism, or any other biases. The Academy continues to graduate its most diverse classes ever concerning ethnicity, gender, experience, and background.”
The US Military Academy’s Public Affairs office recognized they had gotten the naming commission’s report and said they are “reviewing the recommendations,” in a prior explanation made on Wednesday. The renaming of bases with Confederate monikers has been in the works for years on end. It originally turned into a controversial policy-driven issue in the last few months of the Trump organization, when at that point President Donald Trump dismissed the thought, saying that people are just wanting to “throw those names away.”
The commission was formed back in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Beyond the KKK plaque, the commission recognized 12 resources with Confederate name affiliations that ought to be renamed at West Point and three resources at the US Naval Academy.
This story syndicated with permission from For the Love of News