BWI Airport and Thurgood Marshall

BWI's Identity Crisis

Marshall Name Might Confuse Travelers, Some Say

By Elizabeth Williamson and David Snyder
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page B01

The late Thurgood Marshall perhaps would have sympathized with the debate over renaming Baltimore-Washington International Airport in his honor: As a child, historians say, Marshall thought his first name, Thoroughgood, was too long and trimmed it.

The effort to rename BWI for the first black Supreme Court justice has been hailed as an overdue tribute to the Baltimore native and has stirred sharp passions in the General Assembly and Maryland's black community.

But more mundane concerns over the length of the name -- Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, in the latest proposal -- have stalled the bill, putting a symbolic gesture in danger of losing to the clock.

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