by LESLIE ANN MURRAY.Special to the AmNews
Originally posted 5/31/2007
A sea of Kente cloth, batik fabrics and natural hair flooded the steps of City Hall, demanding that Sonny Abubadika Carson's name be reassigned on the ballot to be voted as a street name.
“You can't determine to a people who their heroes are,” Reverend Herbert Daughtry shouted from City Hall steps. Wearing a pinstripe suite and a cabana hat, Councilman Albert Vann, who represents District 36 in Bedford Stuyvesant, said renaming parts of Gates Avenue in Brooklyn to ‘ Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue’ was an issue of self determination for the Black community. “This is not just disrespect for Sonny Carson, it's disrespect for the struggle of Black people. You are infringing upon our rights, ”Vann expressed. Supporters of the name change want Gates Avenue from Classon to Marcy Ave. to be renamed ‘ Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue.’
The news conference was a spirited gospel of community activists, educators and elected officials all demanding in unison that a hero comes in different shades, genders and ideologies. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn withdrew Carson's name from the street naming ballot because she considered him ‘anti-white’ and divisive.
“If you are going to sit here and tell me that Gates, Fulton and all of these slave holders and racists [can have a street] you need to shut up,” Councilman Charles Barron yelled. Barron said Carson was the least divisive of the people commemorated with streets named after previous slave owners, and that Carson deserves a street named after him.
“How many of you would want your life judge by a few words that you might have uttered in anger?” Rev. Daughtry preached. “No one, and therefore we want our life judged not only on a word but on the totality of everything. This city owes him a debt of gratitude instead of denying him as a hero.”