Pastor of Park Hill Congregational United Church of Christ

Stapleton is an example of institutionalized racism. A memorial to white supremacy – an airport not named after his death for all his laudable accomplishments but in 1944, while he was still in the middle of his second stint as mayor. By people who knew the whole story. And now his name is so interwoven into the structure of society that few people notice it, or when pointed out, justifications for it are given more weight than the disruption it would entail to eliminate it – to eliminate a painful reminder to People of Color, Jews, Catholics, Chinese and all others whom the KKK openly terrorized, who I am certain were not consulted about using his name for the airport. As simplistic as it may seem, this hurts my neighbor. If my neighbor says this hurts them, then I can do no other than side with the commandment “Love does no wrong to a neighbor.”