The Last Thing This Country Needs Right Now Is Millions Of Disaffected Citizens Rising Up To Rename Streets

Thank god the “struggle” involves a street renaming and not, you know, actual social change:

Pastors and activists are descending on City Hall today, vowing to raise to new heights a fight to rename a Brooklyn street after a radical black activist, Sonny Carson.

City Council Member Charles Barron of Brooklyn, a former Black Panther, is leading the charge, lobbing threatening remarks at Speaker Christine Quinn, saying yesterday that she and others blocking the renaming are “at fault for anything that goes on during this struggle.”

“People are really going to take this to another level,” Mr. Barron said yesterday. Ms. Quinn “has to bear responsibility for anything that happens at City Hall.”

A committee hearing last month on the proposal to rename a portion of Gates Avenue as Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue devolved into a shoving match between City Hall guards and Carson supporters. Today’s rally and planned remarks during the council’s session is the first time since the tussle that the street renaming question will return to City Hall.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn, Maria Alvarado, said in a statement, “The Speaker has every confidence that New Yorkers who come to City Hall to express their views will conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.”