'Slap in the face': NAACP rips Trump over aircraft carrier name
The NAACP and other community leaders are criticizing reports that the U.S. Navy may name a new aircraft carrier after Donald Trump instead of WWII hero Doris Miller. The vessel was originally intended to honor Miller, who would be the first African American to have a carrier named after him.
Why it matters
The naming of military assets is a symbolic issue that intersects with racial history, political legacy, and national identity.
Hear this story Black community leaders on Friday, Aug. 21, slammed U.S. Navy officials over their reported move to name an upcoming aircraft carrier after President Donald Trump instead of WWII hero Doris Miller.
Miller was a Black enlisted soldier in the U.S. Navy. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 he helped carry wounded sailors to safety and manned an anti-aircraft gun to take down at least one Japanese plane despite not being trained on the weapon.
"This is a slap in the face to every war hero and to every service member who has worn the uniform," Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said in a statement posted to X about the reported name change. "It’s beyond comprehension for a president to want his own name on a Navy ship while our armed forces are living in deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln."
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