Board members bring back idea to rename Fort Monroe
HAMPTON — A proposal to rename Fort Monroe has been resurrected by board of trustees members who are concerned the current name ignores centuries of the site’s history and could be stifling fundraising efforts.
The Fort Monroe Authority Board of Trustees considered the question of whether the site should be renamed Thursday morning as members met during a retreat. Some alternative suggestions floated for the 565-acre property and its affiliated organizations included “Old Point Comfort,” “Point Comfort,” and “Point Comfort at Fort Monroe.”
Chairman Jim Moran made a case that the name of Fort Monroe could be misleading and hurt fundraising efforts for the Fort Monroe Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on promoting and sustaining Fort Monroe and its programs.
“The name is wrong,” Moran said. “It is not a military installation. It’s not a fort.”
He argued that 99.9% of the people in the country “are ignorant of what Fort Monroe means.” He said there might be people who would be willing to invest money to support African American history that would likely pause at being asked to give money to Fort Monroe, as they would think they were giving money to a military fort. He said the area should be named “Point Comfort” or something else that would better reflect the history of the area.
“A lot of stuff is about branding; it’s as simple as that,” Moran said. “And while people in this region know Fort Monroe, the rest of the country, the rest of the state, they don’t. And I think it’s time for us to change our branding because I think it’s relevant to raising money for the foundation. The name has to connote something and Fort Monroe doesn’t.”
Point Comfort — later known as Old Point Comfort — was the site at the tip of the Peninsula where the first enslaved Africans were brought to English-speaking North America in 1619. The site later became the military installation known as Fort Monroe, which ceased to operate as an Army base in 2011.
It isn’t the first time Moran’s suggested a name change, he broached the subject in 2019. But the suggestion Thursday seemed to have at least some support among board members.
Authority board member Brian Jackson agreed with Moran’s assessment. Board member Jay Joseph said the foundation could consider using the branding “Point Comfort at Fort Monroe.” But he said rebranding is not something to “lightly decide.”
Fort Monroe Executive Director Glenn Oder agreed there needs to be a way to tie the history of Old Point Comfort to present-day Fort Monroe. He also said the authority needs to do more work to pay homage to the indigenous people who once lived on the land as well as the first Africans who arrived.
“I haven’t married the idea of dismissing the name of Fort Monroe,” Oder said. “But I can tell you this, I have learned that every single time I say ‘Fort Monroe’ I skip 242 years of history.”
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Del. A.C. Cordoza, a member of the board of trustees, said while he is “fine with incorporating Old Point Comfort,” he did not want to get rid of the name Fort Monroe as the name could be a draw for those interested in the site’s military history.
“I want to get people who want Black history, I also want people who want war history, military history,” Cordoza said. “I want to get every single dime, every single investment, every single angle, because some people, you know, Black history isn’t on the back of their mind, all they care about is war history. They were in some war or their grandfather fought in World War II and all they want to do is think about military history.”
Moran clarified to the Daily Press that he envisioned the name change applying to the Fort Monroe site itself, the foundation and the authority. He said Point Comfort “has the advantage of an identity that is far more expansive than that the implied military designation.”
Oder, who is set to retire later this year, told the Daily Press that officially changing the name of the site would require action from the state legislature. But first, the effort would require internal discussion around marketing and branding.
“Fort Monroe is a significant name. It’s in all the history books,” Oder said. “But yet, when you bring up Point Comfort, you capture 250 plus years of history that that isn’t captured, when you talk about Fortress Monroe, right? So that’s where it gets so exciting to start talking about Point Comfort at Fort Monroe in present day Hampton, Virginia. It’s a long title. It’s where you work with PR people to figure out what’s the best way to say it.”
Josh Janney, joshua.janney@virginiamedia.com
