Controversy over street name in Brooklyn

(New York - WABC, June 16, 2007) (WABC) -- There is a street-renaming controversy in Brooklyn. The city council voted no, but a group of community activists has ignored that decision and put up a street sign in honor of black activist Sonny Carson.

The ceremony took place Sunday at the intersection of Nostrand and Gates Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

That's where Eyewitness News reporter Lucy Yang has more.

If you look on any map or GPS then you will see Gates Avenue in Brooklyn. But if you ask demonstrators out today, they will tell you this street now belongs to the late Sonny Carson.

They came to bless, to dedicate and to rename this part of Gates Avenue by Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue. The street ceremony had all of the trappings of an official renaming except that this was far from approved. In fact, the city council voted down the renaming just last month.

"Twenty-four white members of the city council, the white speaker and the white mayor to tell the entire black community no, we are not having that. We are naming this after Sonny Carson," said NYC Council Member Charles Barron. "It is official whether they take that sign down or not."

Not about to accept the rejection, supporters put up Carson's name anyway over Gates Avenue insisting they have the right to self-naming, self-determination and self-rule.

"That is our right," said one of demonstrators. "This is our community."

Sonny Carson was a Brooklyn activist who died four years ago. He was an outspoken critic of police brutality and a soldier against crack in his own neighborhood. He was also a lightning rod in race relations, calling himself anti-white.

In the end, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn found him more divisive than role model and pulled his name from consideration.

"George Washington offended the British. Thomas Jefferson offended the slaves he held," said attorney Roger Wareham. "So if offense is a criteria, then all of the streets in New York City have to be re-looked at and renamed."

Most likely the city will take down the new signs but protesters claim they will keep putting them back up until this is known as Sonny Carson Avenue with or without the sign.

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