The U.S. Navy is taking fire for commissioning a ship as the USS Jackson, with activists claiming it wrongly commemorates the legacy of a racist slaveowner.

The new USS Jackson, the third ship to bear the name, is a littoral combat ship (LCS) — a smaller vessel intended for operations in shallow water. The ship was commissioned Dec. 5 during a ceremony in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The Jackson is not directly named after President Andrew Jackson. It’s named after Jackson, Mississippi, which is in line with the general practice of naming littoral combat ships after cities (other examples include the USS Cincinnati and USS Charleston). But the Mississippi capital is named after President Jackson, and activists are still distressed about that indirect connection. (RELATED: Princeton Students Demand Erasure Of Woodrow Wilson)

“This is totally appalling,” Connecticut NAACP president Scot Esdaile told CNN. “[Jackson was] a big-time slavemaster, pro-slavery, the whole nine yards.” He said America shouldn’t name ships after former slaveowners, which is a category that would include former George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses Grant and nine other U.S. presidents.

In the months since last June’s shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, where Dylann Roof murdered nine black churchgoers, there has been a significant backlash against iconic American leaders over their racial views.

Jackson, a slaveowner who supported the expulsion of American Indians from the American southeast, has hardly escaped this ongoing reevaluation. Today, many argue Jackson’s racial views should overshadow his role in defeating the British at the Battle of New Orleans, defusing the Nullification Crisis, and elevating the importance of the “common man” in American politics.

“For our government to hold Andrew Jackson up to some reverence today, given our nation’s better appreciation of American history today than generations ago, is very troubling,” Cherokee Nation secretary of state Chuck Hoskin Jr. told CNN. Hoskin complained that the name was a “step backward” for the country, and said the government should have consulted with the Cherokee regarding the name.

Responsibility for choosing the name rests with Navy secretary Ray Mabus, who chooses all U.S. Navy ship names. Mabus has not commented.

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