Changing the name of the missile cruiser Chancellorsville to Robert Smalls, former slave and sailor, is the latest move by the Department of Defense to change the names of facilities, buildings and assets, who were somehow connected with the successes of the Confederation.
U.S. Navy announcement does not provide timeline for changes, but indicated, that "the logistical aspects, associated with the renaming of the ship, will begin shortly and will continue to completion with minimal impact on operations and crew.".
US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in his speech, that renaming the cruiser is not related to "rewriting history". Instead of this, According to him, renaming the ship is aimed at, that:
Divert attention from those parts of our history, that do not comply with the principles of this country, and instead allows us to highlight the events and people in the story, that, perhaps, were overlooked. The US Navy has a history of naming ships in honor of the Confederacy. Such names have for some time become, to put it mildly, controversial. Recently there have been skirmishes, that erupted in Charlottesville (Virginia), where in the end it all ended in the death of one of the most actively protesting.
Robert Smalls - human, which deserves to be the symbol of a warship, and with this renaming, his story will continue to be retold and highlighted,” Del Toro said..
Smalls was born into a family of slaves in 1839 in South Carolina, became a sailor. He was called to serve as a pilot aboard the Confederate steamship Planter., brought the ship out of Charleston Harbor 1862 year, taking my family, other slaves and military cargo, before being handed over to the US Navy. Smalls later became the captain of the Planter. (after the abolition of slavery) and was elected to Congress five times. He died in 1915 year.
Commissioned in 1989 The ship was named after the Battle of Chancellorsville 1863 of the year, considered the greatest victory of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
The name change took place after, how Congress instructed the Commission on Names to review military property and rename those, who is affiliated with the Confederation, after the killing of George Floyd by police in 2020 year.
The Commission recommended renaming more than 1000 objects: monuments, streets, educational institutions, ships, including Chancellorsville and oceanographic research vessel Maury, named after Matthew Fontaine Maury, Confederate Navy officer.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin accepted the commission's recommendations in September and ordered services to make changes before the end of this year.. Earlier, the United States Naval Academy announced, that the name after Mori will also be changed. Author:The same Mikhail
