Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Fort Monroe removes letters honoring Confederate president

Crews have begun to remove lettering that honors Confederate President Jefferson Davis at Virginia’s Fort Monroe National Monument.

The letters were being taken down Friday from their place on arch at the former military base, which is in Hampton and overlooks the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The letters spelled “Jefferson Davis Memorial Park.”

The United Daughters of the Confederacy paid the U.S. Army to build the arch in 1956. Gov. Ralph Northam originally called for taking down the entire archway before agreeing to remove only the letters.

They will be placed in in a museum at the fort. Davis had been imprisoned for treason at the fort following the Civil War.

John Mangalonzo
John Mangalonzohttps://wydaily.com
John Mangalonzo ([email protected]) is the managing editor of Local Voice Media’s Virginia papers – WYDaily (Williamsburg), Southside Daily (Virginia Beach) and HNNDaily (Hampton-Newport News). Before coming to Local Voice, John was the senior content editor of The Bellingham Herald, a McClatchy newspaper in Washington state. Previously, he served as city editor/content strategist for USA Today Network newsrooms in St. George and Cedar City, Utah. John started his professional journalism career shortly after graduating from Lyceum of The Philippines University in 1990. As a rookie reporter for a national newspaper in Manila that year, John was assigned to cover four of the most dangerous cities in Metro Manila. Later that year, John was transferred to cover the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines. He spent the latter part of 1990 to early 1992 embedded with troopers in the southern Philippines as they fought with communist rebels and Muslim extremists. His U.S. journalism career includes reporting and editing stints for newspapers and other media outlets in New York City, California, Texas, Iowa, Utah, Colorado and Washington state.

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