A N.Y. Street Is Named for Robert E. Lee. Officials Want That Changed

Mayor Bill de Blasio waded into a resurgent national debate over the legacy of the Civil War on Thursday morning, when he called on military officials to rename a street at an Army base in Brooklyn named after Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general and its military leader.

“His name should be taken off everything in America, period,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news briefing.

The mayor’s comments came as the city has faced weeks of protests demanding a reckoning over institutional racism and systemic bias, part of a national movement touched off by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Included in that larger conversation has been the revival of a long-running and difficult discussion over Confederate tributes.

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The Fort Hamilton Army base in southern Brooklyn near Bay Ridge, which is overseen by the military and not by local officials, still has two roads named after Southern generals: General Lee Avenue, named after Lee, and Stonewall Jackson Drive, named for Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.