While speaking at a candidate forum at Chicago State University earlier this week, embattled mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel speculated that it would be a good idea to name an airport after Chicago’s favorite community organizer, Barack Obama.
When asked at a candidate forum at Chicago State University why he was no longer supporting his own proposal to name two high schools after Obama and influential religious and community leader Arthur Brazier, Emanuel said that he was still looking for ways to “acknowledge people who have done significant things.”
“We have an airport, two of them, you know, Midway Airport, O’Hare Airport,” Emanuel said. “[Obama and Brazier] are people who have been transformative in the city of Chicago. But we have airports named after battleships.”
Emanuel walked back his statement when his spokesman said he had no plans to rename the Chicago airports.
O’Hare airport is named after a WWII Navy pilot Edward “Butch” O’Hare and Midway is named after the WWII Battle of Midway.
The Battle of Midway, Sept. 16, 1942.
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