Residents of a North Carolina city will meet tonight to decide if it will change its name because of historical links to slavery, a hugely symbolic move at a time when the US is once again attempting to confront its controversial past.

Fort Bragg – which is also home to a huge military base of the same name – is named after Braxton Bragg, a general in the Confederate army that fought to keep the “peculiar institution” of keeping, buying and owning Black people.

Bragg himself, when he retired from military life in 1855, purchased a sugar plantation with his wife on which 105 slaves worked.

In the wake of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent weeks, there have been calls across the country to remove statues dedicated to Confederate generals but Fort Bragg has decided to go further.

In a Facebook post earlier this month, the city said:

The move has divided residents with various petitions attempting to rouse support both for and against the name change.

At a political level, president Trump has refused to change names even of military bases. “Hopefully our great Republican Senators won’t fall for this!” he said in a tweet last week.

But top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said this week he’s “OK” with renaming military bases, declining to side with Trump and other Republicans opposed to the move.

McConnell, himself the descendant of a Confederate veteran, didn’t endorse the idea but said he wouldn’t oppose it. Similarly, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy of California said last week — after repeated prodding — that he doesn’t oppose the idea.

“I can only speak for myself on this issue. If it’s appropriate to take another look at these names I’m OK with that,” McConnell said.

“Whatever is ultimately decided I don’t have a problem with.”

And there might be another, far less controversial reason to change the name of Forty Bragg.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt, who represents Missouri, a state that sent troops to fight for both the Union and the Confederacy noted that Braxton Bragg, was “probably the worst commanding general in the entire Confederate Army. He’s an interesting guy to name a fort after”.

Bragg was relieved of his command after losing a major battle in 1863.