Fort Johnson, which was named after Albany war hero and World War I Sgt. Henry Johnson, is being renamed to Fort Polk. The Army made that announcement Tuesday along with a slew of other name changes to U.S. military installations.

Johnson was born in North Carolina but later moved to Albany.

With the previous administration, President Joe Biden eliminated many names associated with Confederate leaders. And with that, almost two years to the day, Louisiana's Fort Polk, inspired by Confederate General Leonidas Polk, was renamed Fort Johnson. According to a press release on the Army’s website, the renaming of Fort Johnson will now pay homage to a World War II colonel and Silver Star recipient James H. Polk as opposed to Leonidas Polk.

Johnson worked at Albany’s Union Station before enlisting in the New York National Guard’s segregated 15th New York (Colored) Infantry Regiment in 1917. He served under French command and became a national hero for valor on the battlefield. The 15th New York later turned into the 369th Infantry Regiment and became known as the "Harlem Hellfighters."

During the Battle of the Argonne Forest on the early morning of May 15, 1918, the 130-pound soldier singlehandedly held off a large German raiding party, and despite suffering 21 wounds, kept fighting to help rescue a fellow soldier from capture.

Johnson became one of the first Americans to be awarded the French Croix de Guerre avec Palme, France's highest award for valor.

He returned home unable to continue at his pre-war porter position due to the severity of his combat injuries. He died in July 1929 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.

He posthumously received the Medal of Honor from former President Barack Obama in a 2015 White House ceremony. 

In March, the DOD removed an Army webpage describing the renaming of Fort Polk in Louisiana to Fort Johnson in 2023, as part of its review of "culturally focused Army websites" under President Donald Trump's executive order terminating diversity, equity and inclusion offices, positions and programs in the federal government. The web page recently returned to the web.

Trump is now looking to rename the military installations, honoring other historic military figures who share the same surname as the Confederate officers they were once named after. 

“We are also going to be restoring the names,” the president said during an event at Fort Bragg earlier this week commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts; it’s no time to change.”

These bases include Fort Cavazos in Texas, Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, Fort Novosel in Alabama and three bases in Virginia: Fort Walker, Fort Barfoot, Fort Gregg-Adams and Fort Johnson in Louisiana.

As they did when they changed back Fort Bragg and Fort Benning, Defense officials announced Tuesday that they had identified service members with the same last names in order to make the change and not have the bases officially carry Confederate-related names.

“The way we commemorate and memorialize history is not history itself,” said Richard Fogarty, a professor of history at the University at Albany. “What we choose to celebrate in the past is a constant negotiation.”

This is the latest effort by the Trump administration to reel in diversity, equity and inclusion concepts championed by his predecessor. Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the Navy would rename a ship named after Harvey Milk, a UAlbany graduate.

“Harvey Milk is the first what we would call 'out gay' American politician,” Carl Bon Tempo, a professor of history at the university. 

Politics aside, historians call what is seemingly becoming a battle of renaming locations and military equipment unfortunate but expected. 

“Contests over how we write history, how any country writes their history are deeply embedded in the politics, and social relations of the period in which the people are living,” Bon Tempo said.

In a statement released Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed back on the renaming of Fort Johnson, calling the move a "slap in the face" to Johnson's memory:

“This is a vile insult to the memory and heroic patriotism of Sgt. Henry Johnson, a Medal of Honor recipient and Albany resident who Theodore Roosevelt called ‘one of the five bravest Americans’ to have served in World War I. For nearly a century, the nation for which he was willing to give his life shamefully failed to recognize Henry Johnson’s heroics, simply because of the color of his skin, and now they are disgracefully removing his name from an honor he unquestionably earned via superhuman heroism on the battlefield. Allied Commander Gen. John Pershing singled out Johnson for his valor in repelling a German raider party of at least 12 men, and Johnson protected his fellow soldiers under heavy fire and repelled the raiding party resulting in several enemy casualties, engaging in hand to hand combat. For this he received no American military honor because of a racist and segregated military. Henry Johnson loved America when America did not love him back. Yet he still willingly put his life on the line for our great nation. Some might call that the warrior spirit. I call it patriotism of the very highest order.

“Sgt. Johnson is a true American hero who displayed the most profound bravery on the battlefield, and returning this fort to its former name, that of a Confederate general, and taking this honor away from a medal of honor recipient is a disgusting new low for the Trump administration. It is utterly indefensible. All of America should be outraged at this slap in the face of a war hero. The Trump administration should be ashamed and should immediately reverse this decision.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.