Charles Barron's Renegade Park Ceremony

Sonny Carson is being honored at 1 p.m. today with the renaming of a park on Linden Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Brooklyn.

Which is weird since a plan to co-name a street after him has stalled in the City Council. Did the Parks Department authorize the Carson renaming?

“No, we’re not waiting for approval,” Charles Barron told me today. “We’re exercising self-determination. We’re going to put up a sign and if they take it down, we’re going to keep putting it up until they leave it up.”

Barron also said he has the support of about twenty members of the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus leading up to the May 30th vote to co-name a street after Carson in Brooklyn. There is also an amendment to remove Carson’s name from an omnibus co-naming bill.

Critics of Carson point note that the outspoken civil rights figure declared himself “anti-white” and played a prominent role the boycotting of Korean stores that polarized parts of the city.

“Let's say all of that is true," Barron said. "We still have a right.”