On 20 January 2020, during a ceremony in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly named a future "Gerald R. Ford"-class aircraft carrier in honor of World War II hero Doris Miller. This will be the first aircraft carrier named for an African American, and the first aircraft carrier to be named for a sailor in the enlisted ranks. It is the second ship named in honor of Miller, who was the first African American to be awarded the Navy Cross.