Albany World War I hero Sgt. Henry Johnson’s legacy is among the casualties as the Trump administration renames seven military bases.
In 2023, Louisiana's Fort Polk was renamed Fort Johnson in honor of Albany’s own Henry Johnson, a Black Medal of Honor recipient.
The Army base had been named for slave owner and Confederate general Leonidas Polk from 1941 until the Biden administration made the change as part of a broader effort to move away from names associated with the former Confederacy.
Now, the Trump administration is changing base names back, and Fort Johnson will once again be Fort Polk, although it will honor World War II Silver Star recipient Gen. James H. Polk instead of the Confederate general.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan attended the 2015 White House ceremony when President Barack Obama bestowed the Medal of Honor on Johnson for his actions in World War I – in which he fought off a German advance and rescued a fellow soldier from capture.
"As a young man, Henry Johnson joined millions of other African-Americans on the great migration from the rural south to the industrial north and people in search of a better life. He landed in Albany, where he mixed sodas at a pharmacy, worked at a coalyard and as a porter at a train station. And when the United States entered World War I, Henry enlisted," Obama said.
June 5th marked the 108th anniversary of Johnson's enlistment in the all-Black 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellfighters.
On Wednesday, a tearful Sheehan said changing the name of the fort "is about white supremacy."
"There were people who were invited to that ceremony who never thought they would set foot in the White House, much less be in a room with the president United States. And it matters, and leaders are called upon to do the right thing, and I am watching Republicans in Washington not only not do the right thing, but allow the rule of law and basic human decency and dignity to be crushed, ignored. And it's not right, and this is not the way that I wanted to spend the last six months of being the mayor of this incredible city," said Sheehan.
The Democrat is calling for the Department of Defense to reverse the decision. She said medals and monuments in the city honoring Johnson will remain in place. In 2017, Albany began celebrating the annual Henry Johnson Day.
The name Fort Johnson was bestowed by the Congressional Naming Commission, formed in 2021 following the racial reckoning that emerged from the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In 2024, WAMC spoke with one of the five commission members, Retired Brigadier General Ty Seidule, who noted the commission made more than a thousand changes to move away from associations with the Confederacy. He said heroes like Johnson deserved to be commemorated.
"Black soldiers in World War I, many of them including the Harlem Hellfighters, were given to the French. They served in French uniforms. And one of the people that we named it after, Henry Johnson, actually was one of the Harlem Hellfighters, who fought in French uniform because the American commander, John J. Pershing, did not want those soldiers fighting with him. So this is an ability to recognize true heroes for what they really did. And not those who chose the Confederates, chose treason, to preserve slavery," Seidule said.
Johnson also received the French military’s highest recognition, the Croix de Guerre.
Despite being initially celebrated for his 1918 actions – including leading his regiment’s homecoming parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City in February 1919 and sitting down to a dinner with Governor Al Smith – Johnson’s heroics were later forgotten by many. Left severely wounded from combat, he died impoverished in 1929. Following advocacy efforts, Johnson was finally awarded the Purple Heart in 1996 – an award presented to every American service member wounded in combat. In 2002, Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor.
