New highway signs for Fort Liberty to cost $500,000 | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal. The author of this post is Theresa Opeka.

    More changes are on the way for the recently renamed Fort Bragg, and they come with a hefty price tag.

    Highway signs announcing the Army base now known as Fort Liberty will cost $500,000, according to North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).

    The change became official on June 2.

    About 30 signs with the new name have been ordered but not put up yet. More than 40 current signs will have the name "Bragg" covered over with a sticker that says "Liberty."

    In addition to the highway signs, the cost to rename all assets at Fort Bragg - including many streets, buildings, uniforms, the USASOC Memorial Wall, the Parade Field, Hendrick Stadium Memorial Wall, and the 82nd Airborne Museum - is estimated to be $6.3 million, the most expensive of the 9 military bases changing their names due to ties with the Confederacy.

    An uproar over the police killing of George Floyd in 2020 led to calls across the country to change the Confederate names of things like military ships, bases, and assets.

    According to a press release issued by the United States Department of Defense, the complete report included the Naming Commission's plan to remove the names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.

    Congress established the commission in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which then-President Trump vetoed in part due to the commission's existence. Bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate overrode his veto.

    Implementing all of the recommendations will cost an estimated $62.5 million.