A congressionally-chartered group assigned to reviewing federal names related to the Confederacy, as reported by The Gainesville Times, has created shock waves by saying the lake and dam are “within its remit for consideration, but not within its purview to provide a naming recommendation.”
Why? Someone researched that Lake Lanier, named for famed poet Sydney Lanier, served during the 1860s in the Confederate Army as a private. Buford Dam is named for the town, the namesake of Lt. Col. Algernon Buford, who served in the Virginia Militia during the Civil War. All of this is in the The Naming Commission’s Final Report to Congress last year.
The Naming Commission has stirred controversy and resentment over the past year with its arbitrary decisions to rename military-related facilities in Georgia and elsewhere that are named for Confederate military heroes. The Commission is currently being sued, for example, for recommending the destruction of an iconic monument in Arlington National Cemetery memorializing some 200 Confederate fallen buried there. (Under federal law, Confederate veterans and their cemeteries are supposed to fall under the same protections as Union Civil War veterans and their cemeteries.)
The Stars and Stripes, a military paper, notes in an article that commissioners included the civil works in their review of military assets but declined to offer naming recommendations for them due to the overlapping nature of their ownership and management with individual states.
The commission is instead deferring a decision on their names to Congress, according to the publication.
“Rep. Clyde and his team are aware of the matter,” said Madeline Huffman, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, whose district includes Hall County and the eastern part of Lake Lanier.
“I can’t comment on the ongoing situation, but I’ll be (able) to discuss the congressman’s reaction and future plans in the coming weeks.”
The Gainesville newspaper notes that the possibility of Lake Lanier being renamed has caused a stir locally. It quotes Kit Dunlap, president and CEO of the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce, saying she doesn’t want to see the name changed and was unaware that Lake Lanier “was included in this federal review.”
