What at the airport do councilmembers wish to rename? Concourse D, the narrowest concourse at the Atlanta airport. Concourse D is undergoing a massive expansion project with the help of federal funding from the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law, to better accommodate the thousands of passengers that push through its walkways and gate areas on a daily basis.
At a committee meeting on Wednesday, there were no objections by councilmembers to honoring Hollis. But a member of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ cabinet said the administration wasn’t consulted about the legislation in advance, and an airport official said a formal renaming — rather than a ceremonial one — could cause confusion for passengers, among other problems.
City councilmembers drafted a proposed ordinance to rename Concourse D as the Michael R. Hollis Concourse and introduced it at its most recent full council meeting March 4. On Wednesday, a parade of supporters of Hollis streamed into a council committee meeting to speak in favor of the renaming, including former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
Reed called Hollis’s story “one of the great Atlanta stories” and said what Hollis accomplished was “a source of inspiration.”
The renaming would “make sure that every little girl and every little boy knows that there was a man named Michael Hollis who built one of the most important Black-owned airlines in the United States of America, and he did it right here in the city of Atlanta, a place where you bring and build your dreams,” Reed said.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, wrote a letter in support of the concourse renaming, calling it “a fitting tribute to an icon in the airline industry.”
“At a time when so few Black businesses existed in the United States, let alone thrived, Mr. Hollis’s ambition could not be deterred,” Johnson wrote. “While the company ultimately did not survive, due to a series of events that were beyond its control, Mr. Hollis’s tenacity…
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