Critics Demand That John Wayne🛫 Airport Be Renamed After Actors’ White Supremacy’ Comment

Critics Demand That John Wayne Airport Be Renamed  After Actors’ White Supremacy’ Comment

People are calling for John Wayne Airport, Orange County to change its name, following its namesake’s racist and homophobic quotes in a 1971 article,
which went viral on Twitter. Writer Michael Hiltzik’s column in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 21 argued that the airport should be renamed after it was revealed that John supported white supremacy. “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility,” John said in the Playboy article. John also described a gay characters as “perverted” when discussing Midnight Cowboy and used a homophobic slur.

Because of this, Helzig argued that that due to the diverse community in Orange County, “it’s hard to justify asking any member of that community to board planes at an airport named after an outspoken racist and homophobe, with his strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse.”

John himself had lived in the Orange County area, and the airport was named after him when he died in 1979 at 72 years old. John’s 57-year-old son Ethan took to CNN to defend his late father in light of the public request to change the airport’s name.