According to this article the officials at Fort Bliss are about to rename Robert E. Lee road. The new name will be Buffalo Soldier Road.
The buffalo soldiers were a significant part of our local history and certainly deserve to have things named in their honor.
My problem here is that we could have named some significant new road or facility after the buffalo soldiers instead of changing the name of something already named.
Money is being wasted as addresses have to be changed. History is being lost since past references to the old name will not be easy to follow in the future.
One fear is that this is revisionism at work.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Be glad you’re not the diversity dean at Washington and Lee University 🙂
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It’s unfortunate that the Buffalo Soldiers, great African-American soldiers who deserve to be honored, are replacing Robert E. Lee, the general who led the Confederacy in the Civil War. This trade-off suggests that the change is being made in part to erase the name of a Confederate general, just as steps have been taken to force the removal of statues and renaming landmarks in many communities across the South.
Yes, people are trying to rewrite history and the person who recommended that switch apparently had a political agenda and their own racial axe to grind. Slavery was a horrible thing. However, the top two reasons the South seceded from the Union were 1) economic and cultural differences unrelated to slavery, and 2) the South’s strong belief in Sates’ rights versus Federal rights. If one believes that we learn from our mistakes, that alone is a compelling reason not to eliminate reminders of the Civil War and those who fought and died during one of the darkest hours of our Nation’s history.
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So sad because Robert E. Lee is considered one of the greatest generals in U. S. history. It’s pretty obviously a bow to political correctness by Ft. Bliss, which now participates in the insane practice of judging people 100 years ago by today’s standards and trying to erase history. Reminds me of the novel Nineteen Eighty-four.
I agree, there are plenty of new streets at Ft. Bliss that could be named for the Buffalo Soldiers, who by the way have already received much deserved recognition locally and nationally.
I wouldn’t be surprised if City Council joins the insanity someday and renames Porfirio Diaz (modern Mexican historians usually trash him instead of giving him some credit for bringing business to Mexico), or the public schools named after Travis, Crockett, Bowie and others who fought at the Alamo. And will Austin and Jefferson get new names because someone doesn’t like what their namesakes did 150-200 years ago?
The only consolation is hoping that today’s historic revisionism will seen for what it is in 100 years — transparent attempts to rewrite history by todays dubious standards.
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There’s only a handful of signs to change, and there are no buildings that have addresses on the road, so no big change there either.
There really are two reasons for the renaming: 1) There’s a giant statue in the middle of the road honoring the Buffalo Soldiers and 2) There are two roads named “Robert E. Lee” in that vicinity, but neither connect, which is confusing for newcomers looking for the “Robert E. Lee Gate,” one of the few 24-hour gates into Fort Bliss.
Civil War aficionados can take heart in that there’s still J.E.B. Stuart Rd. on Fort Bliss.
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Thanks for the good, rational explanation. I’m glad my concerns appear to have been unwarranted.
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