LR Airport Commission to dedicate new road in honor of the late James Rodgers Sr., first Black airport director in the nation

Posted on June 16, 2025

The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission will dedicate a new road on Wednesday (June 18) in honor of the late James R. Rodgers Sr., former Executive Director of Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport (1980-1993) and the first African American Executive Director of a United States airport.

The ceremony will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Hampton Inn & Suites, located at 4400 E. Roosevelt Road, near the airport. An event reception will be held following the event officiated by Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. and Commission Chair Patrick Schueck.

Besides Rodger’s legacy at the state’s largest airport, he was also the first Black head of a major independent city agency in Little Rock (Pulaski County), and Arkansas’s first Black commercial loan officer.

Born March 15, 1947, in Little Rock, Rodgers graduated from Horace Mann High School in 1965. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a radar technician and later earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 1972. He married Claudia Dennis of North Little Rock on Feb. 20, 1967, and the couple have two children, James Rodger Jr. and Claudia A. Rodgers.

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