SAN DIEGO _ Statues have been toppled. Flags have been lowered. America's reckoning with its history of racism has spread across the country and is now casting its eyes toward the sea.
Will the names of Navy ships be next?
Two of them have ties to the Civil War Confederacy: the guided-missile cruiser Chancellorsville, named after a pivotal battle won by the South, and the Maury, a survey ship named after pioneering oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, who resigned from the U.S. Navy to join the Confederate Navy.
Two other ships, the carrier Carl Vinson and the carrier John C. Stennis, are named after Southern U.S. congressmen who were staunch supporters of the Navy and also backed racial segregation.
Recent media reports say Navy leaders privately have been discussing what to do about the ships amid a broader Department of Defense review of names and symbols that honor those who fought to preserve slavery or uphold white supremacy.
Both the U.S. Senate and House passed $741 billion defense authorization bills this month that include language calling on the Pentagon to strip its property of ties to the Confederacy.
The House bill requires the changes to happen within one year, and the Senate bill, three. Negotiators from the two sides will meet to resolve that and other differences.
President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the legislation over the naming issue, calling it a misguided attempt to rewrite history. But both the House and Senate passed their bills with large-enough majorities to override any veto, assuming no votes change during final tallying.
Although most of the attention so far has been on the 10 Army bases that are named after Confederate officers _ including Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, and Fort Benning in Georgia _ the bills include provisions that also apply to ships.
If there are name changes, they would join a complicated and sometimes controversial history that dates to America's early days, when the Continental Congress first decided, in 1775, that it wanted a Navy.
"There are periods of time when the Navy stuck resolutely to its rules about how to name ships, and times when it has varied," said Eric Wertheim, a Washington D.C. defense consultant and author who specializes in international naval fleets.
"It is absolutely one of those things inextricably linked to politics, culture, and the way people view history at any given time."
