Atlanta Airport Renaming Stirs (Racial) Tensions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3257672,00.html



ATLANTA (AP) - A push to add the name of
former Mayor Maynard Jackson to the title of the
city's airport pits the legacy of two popular
mayors against each other and has reignited
simmering tensions of new Atlanta vs. old, and
black vs. white.

The change seems almost certain. Two-thirds of
Atlanta's 15 city council members gave tentative
approval earlier this month to a moniker that may
be as busy as the air hub itself -
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Much of the opposition leading up to the Oct. 20
vote is coming from the heirs of current airport
namesake: William B. Hartsfield, the city's
longest-serving mayor who as a councilman in the
1920s was instrumental in selecting a blackberry
patch south of town as the original site for the
airport.

``Plain and simple, Mayor Hartsfield fathered
aviation in Atlanta,'' said distant cousin Dale
Hartsfield, who has served as the family's
spokesman.

n/t

Couldn't a terminal be named for Mayor Jackson? Why does everything always have to be a fight?

It's a solution that works. Simple and neat, and it allows lots of people to get recognition.

Sometimes you almost wonder if people really WANT a fight.

n/t

I'm sure it's a big frikkin' airport, with room enough for two names. What a stupid thing to have controversey over. I like the symmetry of the it, myself.

Initially, the black dominated city council wanted to change the name from Hartsfield International Airport to Jackson International Airport. The white folks in Atlanta did not think it was right to rename the airport. White folks suggested that the International Terminal be named after Jackson, but the black folks did not think this honored Jackson enough. Since black folks control city government in Atlanta the city council is going to make sure that a black person's name gets attached to the Airport.

I live in Atlanta and to solve the problem. They should name the Airport after me...

... I refuse to refer to Washington National (DCA) as "Reagan National"... it's just wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Washington National was already named in honor of our first president... not our worst president (2nd worse).

-- Allen