The USNS Harvey Milk departs the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard after a christening ceremony in San Diego, on Nov. 6, 2021. The ship has been renamed the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, after a World War II naval officer, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Friday.
Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images
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Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images
The Pentagon has officially stripped the late gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk’s name from a U.S. naval vessel, amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to erase what it describes as “woke” ideology from the public.
The former USNS Harvey Milk is now called the USNS Oscar V. Peterson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced in a video posted online Friday.
“We are taking the politics out of ship naming,” Hegseth said. “We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration.”
The ship is part of the John Lewis-class oilers, named after the famed civil rights activist and longtime congressman.
In 2016, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said ships in this class would be named after leaders in civil rights activism. That included paying homage to Milk, who was a Navy veteran and became the first openly gay person to serve in California politics when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Milk was assassinated by a former board colleague in 1978, leaving behind a legacy of advocacy for gay rights.
The ship’s new namesake, Oscar V. Peterson, was a naval officer who was killed in World War II and posthumously granted a Medal of Honor by Congress for bravery during the war.
“People want to be proud of the ship they’re sailing in,” Hegseth said in the video announcement. “And so we’re naming it after a chief, a Navy chief.”
Under Hegseth’s guidance, the Navy is reviewing the names of several other ships named after women, Black and Hispanic people.
Other Navy vessels under review include those named after Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Lucy Stone and Medgar Evers.
