Democratic City Council candidate for the open 43rd City Council seat, Rev. Khader El-Yateem, (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst and Bath Beach) demanded the Fort Hamilton Army Base rename streets during a press conference yesterday in Bay Ridge.
Two streets, General Lee Avenue and Stonewall Drive, located within the confines of the army base have been targeted for renaming because they represent iconic soldiers who fought on the Confederate side of the Civil War.
“This demand is part of a national wave of communities calling for the removal of monuments and street names celebrating the confederacy and our country’s history of slavery,” said El-Yateem. “In light of the disturbing rise in hateful rhetoric, anti-Semitism, and violence towards people of color, the Fort Hamilton Army Base must reevaluate its position and rename the streets immediately.”
The candidate went on to announce that the St. John’s Episcopal Church, informally named Church of the Generals, located on Fort Hamilton Parkway and 99th Street has agreed to remove a plaque affixed to a tree on the church’s property. The metal plate dedicated to General Lee was a gift from the New York Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected in April 1912.
El-Yateem is the second figure to urge the facility to rename the streets. In June, following the removal of Confederate figures in New Orleans, Congressmember Yvette D. Clarke (D-Crown Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, Sheepshead Bay) spearheaded a drive that included fellow Brooklyn Democratic Congressmembers Nydia Velazquez, Jerrold Nadler and Hakeem Jeffries to call for the streets’ renaming. However, Diane M. Randon, a senior official of the Office of the Assistant Secretary shot down the suggestion in a letter responding to Clarke’s request.
“The great generals of the Civil War, Union and Confederate are an inextricable part of our military today, wrote Randon. “The men in question were honored on Fort Hamilton as individuals, not as representatives of any particular cause or ideology.”
Randon went on to write that any effort to rename memorialization on Fort Hamilton would be controversial and divisive.
El-Yateem told KCP he plans to send a formal request to Ryan D. McCarthy, the Acting Secretary of the United States, asking for the renaming of the two streets. The candidate said he has reached out to Clarke and other elected officials and will continue to be in conversation with more leaders –– especially the elected officials in [District 43]. Copies of the letter he is drafting will be forwarded to Congressmember Dan Donovan, Sen. Marty Golden and Councilmember Vincent Gentile said El-Yateem.
Donovan, who represents the district where the base is located, was on an international flight and unreachable before deadline.
Residents in District 43 also came out in support of the candidate. John Hagan, 31, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Middle School 447 in downtown Brooklyn was also in attendance. Hagan said he is concerned about sending the wrong message about how we should think about our history.
“As a history teacher it troubles me that in the United States, we honor men like Robert E. Lee and Jackson that took up arms against the United States to protect slavery and not to protect something greater,” said Hagan.
In response to concerns about rewriting history should monuments be removed and street names are changed, Hagan responded that it is unlikely that the Civil War will ever be erased from American history.
“Imagine if there were streets in Germany named Goebbels or Himmler and somebody said they couldn’t be taken down because it meant forgetting history,” said Hagan.
