Lake Shore Drive or State Street should be renamed for civil rights crusader Ida B. Wells, and Balbo Drive should be left alone, an Italian-American civic leader said Wednesday. One day after Aldermen Sophia King (4th) and Brendan Reilly (42nd) resurrected the name change, Dominic DiFrisco, president emeritus of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian-Americans, shot it down.

DiFrisco said he would not allow Balbo’s “integral part of Chicago history” to be unfairly smeared and swept away in the haste to honor Wells, an iconic figure in the African-American community who led an anti-lynching crusade. “We’ve already proven that he was in no way connected with anti-Semitism,” DiFrisco said.