Al Sharpton
Born	(1954-10-03) October 3, 1954 (age 69) Brooklyn, New York
Occupation(s)	Baptist minister, civil rights and social justice activist
Spouse	Kathy Jordan

Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American Baptist minister and political, civil rights, and social justice activist.^[1][2] In 2004, Sharpton was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U. S. presidential election.

Sharpton hosts his own radio talk show^[3] and makes regular guest appearances on The O'Reilly Factor^[4][5][6] and MSNBC.

Sharpton's critics describe him as "a political radical who is to blame, in part, for the deterioration of race relations".^[7] Conservative David Horowitz has called Sharpton an "anti-Semitic racist",^[8] sociologist Orlando Patterson has referred to him as a racial arsonist,^[8] and liberal newspaper columnist Derrick Z. Jackson has called him the black equivalent of Richard Nixon and Pat Robertson.^[8]

Sharpton sees much of the criticism as a sign of his effectiveness. "In many ways, what they consider criticism is complimenting my job," said Sharpton. "An activist’s job is to make public civil rights issues until there can be a climate for change. So when people get angry at me for raising these issues and making them public, well, that’s my job! That’s what I’m supposed to do. If I could not get the public’s attention on an issue, then I’m not a good activist."^[9]

Sharpton's supporters praise "his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering"^[10] and consider him "a man who is willing to tell it like it is".^[10] Donna Wilson, host of a talk radio program on WWRL in New York City, said of him that "Al Sharpton was born to lead".^[10]

Personal and religious life

What I do functionally is what Dr. King, Reverend Jackson and the movement are all about; but I learned manhood from James Brown. I always say that James Brown taught me how to be a man.

— Sharpton on Brown as a father figure., ^[9]

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Alfred Charles Sharpton, Sr. and Ada Sharpton.^[11] He preached his first sermon at the age of four and toured with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.^[12]

In 1963, Sharpton's father abandoned his family. Ada Sharpton took a job as a maid, but her income was so low that the family qualified for welfare and had to move from middle class Hollis, Queens, to the public housing projects in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.^[13]

Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, and attended Brooklyn College, dropping out after two years in 1975.^[14] He became a tour manager for James Brown in 1971, where he met his future wife, Kathy Jordan, who was a backup singer.^[15] Sharpton and Jordan married in 1980.^[16] The couple separated in 2004.^[17]

Sharpton was licensed and ordained a Pentecostal minister at the age of nine by Bishop F.D. Washington.^[18] After Bishop Washington's death in the late 1980s, Sharpton became a Baptist; he was re-baptized as a member of the Bethany Baptist Church in 1994 by the Reverend William Jones^[19] and became a Baptist minister.^[20][18]

During 2007, Sharpton participated in a public debate with atheist Christopher Hitchens, during which Sharpton defended his religious faith and his belief in the existence of God.^[21]

Activism

In 1969, Sharpton was appointed by Jesse Jackson as youth director of Operation Breadbasket, a group that focused on the promotion of new and better jobs for African-Americans.^[22]

In 1971, Sharpton founded the National Youth Movement to raise resources for impoverished youth.^[23]

Howard Beach

On December 20, 1986, three African-American men were assaulted in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens by a mob of white men. The three men were chased by their attackers onto the Belt Parkway, where one of them, Michael Griffith, was struck and killed by a passing motorist.^[24]

A week later, on December 27, Sharpton led 1,200 demonstrators on a march through the streets of Howard Beach. Residents of the neighborhood, who were overwhelmingly white, screamed racial epithets at the protesters, who were largely Black.^[25] Sharpton's role in the case, which led to the appointment of a special prosecutor by New York Governor Mario Cuomo after the two surviving victims refused to co-operate with the Queens district attorney, helped propel him to national prominence.

Bensonhurst

On August 23, 1989, four Black teenagers were beaten by a group of 10 to 30 white youths in Bensonhurst, a Brooklyn neighborhood. One Bensonhurst resident, armed with a handgun, shot and killed sixteen-year-old Yusef Hawkins.

In the weeks following the assault and murder, Sharpton led several marches through Bensonhurst. The first protest, just days after the incident, was greeted by neighborhood residents shouting "Niggers go home" and holding watermelons to mock the demonstrators.^[26]

In May 1990, when one of the two leaders of the mob was acquitted of the most serious charges brought against him, Sharpton led another protest through Bensonhurst. In January 1991, when other members of the gang were given light sentences, Sharpton planned another march for January 12, 1991. Before that demonstration began, neighborhood resident Michael Riccardi tried to kill Sharpton by stabbing him in the chest.^[27] Sharpton recovered from his wounds, and later asked the judge for leniency when Riccardi was sentenced.^[28]

National Action Network

In 1991, Sharpton founded the National Action Network to increase voter education, poverty services, and support small community businesses.^[19]

Amadou Diallo

In 1999, Sharpton led a protest to raise awareness about the death of Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea who was shot to death by NYPD officers. Sharpton claimed that Diallo's death was the result of police brutality and racial profiling. Diallo's family was later awarded $3 million in a wrongful death suit filed against the city.^[29]

Vieques

In 2001, Sharpton was jailed for 90 days for protesting near a United States Navy bombing site in Puerto Rico.^[30]

Ousmane Zongo

In 2002, Sharpton was involved in protests following the death of West African immigrant Ousmane Zongo. Zongo, who was unarmed, was shot by an undercover police officer during a raid on a warehouse in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. Sharpton met with the family and also provided some legal services.^[31]

Sean Bell

Gay rights

Sharpton is a supporter of equal rights for gays and lesbians, including same-sex marriage. Sharpton is leading a grassroots movement to eliminate homophobia within the Black church.^[32]

Animal rights

Sharpton has also spoken out against cruelty to animals in a video recorded for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).^[33] He also joined in a group statement against animal cruelty, during the Bad Newz Kennels dog fighting investigation.^{[citation needed]}

Political campaigns

Sharpton has run unsuccessfully for elected office on multiple occasions. Of his unsuccessful runs, he said that winning office may not have been his goal. "Much of the media criticism of me assumes their goals and the impose them on me," said Sharpton in an interview. Well, those might not be my goals. So they will say, 'Well, Sharpton has not won a political office.' But that might not be my goal! Maybe I ran for political office to change the debate, or to raise the social justice question."^[9] Sharpton ran for a United States Senate seat from New York in 1988, 1992, and 1994. In 1997, he ran for Mayor of New York City.

On January 5, 2003 Sharpton announced his candidacy for the 2004 presidential election as a member of the Democratic Party.

On March 15, 2004, Sharpton announced his endorsement of leading Democratic candidate John Kerry.

On December 15, 2005, Sharpton agreed to repay $100,000 in public funds he received from the federal government for his 2004 Presidential campaign. The repayment was required because Sharpton had exceeded federal limits on personal expenditures for his campaign. At that time his most recent Federal Election Commission filings (from January 1, 2005) stated that Sharpton's campaign still had debts of $479,050 and owed Sharpton himself $145,146 for an item listed as "Fundraising Letter Preparation — Kinko's."^[34]

On April 2, 2007, Sharpton announced that he wouldn't get into the 2008 presidential race this time. "I am not going to run," he said.^[22]

Assassination attempt

On January 12 1991, Sharpton escaped serious injury when he was stabbed in the chest by Michael Riccardi while preparing to lead a protest through Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. The intoxicated attacker was apprehended by Sharpton's aides and handed over to police who were present for the planned protest. Sharpton, although forgiving his attacker and pleading for leniency on his behalf, filed suit against New York City alleging that the many police present had failed to protect him from his attacker. In December 2003 he finally reached a $200,000 settlement^[35] with the city just as jury selection was about to start.

Celebrity status

Sharpton made cameo appearances in the movies Cold Feet, Bamboozled, Mr. Deeds, and Malcolm X. He also appeared in episodes of the television shows New York Undercover, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Girlfriends, My Wife and Kids, and Boston Legal. He hosted the original Spike TV reality television show I Hate My Job, and an episode of Saturday Night Live. He was a guest on Weekends at the DL on Comedy Central and has been featured in television ads for the Fernando Ferrer campaign for the New York City mayoral election, 2005. He also made a cameo appearance, by telephone and still photograph, on the Food Network series, The Secret Life Of . . . , when host Jim O'Connor expressed disbelief that a restaurant owner who'd named a dish after Sharpton actually knew him.

During the 2005 Tony Awards, Sharpton appeared in a number put on by the cast of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

In June 2005, Sharpton signed a contract with Matrix Media, to produce and host a live two-hour daily talk program, which did not air. In November 2005, Sharpton signed with Radio One to host a daily national talk radio program which began airing on January 30, 2006.

The character the Reverend Bacon in the Tom Wolfe novel The Bonfire of the Vanities is based on Sharpton.

Indirect ties to Strom Thurmond

In February 2007, genealogists using the website Ancestry.com discovered that Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather. Coleman Sharpton was later freed during the Civil War.

Thurmond was notable as the longest serving Senator (at the time of his death) who was a major advocate of racial segregation during the middle of the last century.^[36] Thurmond's illegitimate daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, stated she would welcome Sharpton to the family if the DNA test he claims he will take shows he is a relative.^[37] In an interview, Sharpton said he has no plans for the DNA test to see if he is related.^[9]

The Sharpton family name originated with Coleman Sharpton's previous slave-owner, who was also named Alexander Sharpton.^[38]

Allegations of tension between Sharpton and Barack Obama

In April 2007, the New York Post wrote that tension exists between Sharpton and Barack Obama. According to Post political reporter Frederick U. Dicker, "Sharpton has launched a 'big-time' effort to tear down Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as a candidate for president." The Post quoted an unnamed source, whom it described as a "prominent black Democratic activist who knows Sharpton," as saying, "[Sharpton is] saying that Obama never did anything for the community, never worked with anybody from the community, that nobody knows the people around him, that he's a candidate driven by white leadership."^[39]

Speaking to CNN, Sharpton denied the Post's allegations that he is jealous of Obama, saying, "I want to talk about a civil rights agenda as a priority, and the answer to that is not, 'Oh if you want to talk about issues you must be jealous'." Sharpton suggested that an Obama operative planted the story.^[40]

Sharpton thinks the story was planted to divide his own supporters with those who support Obama. "I don’t have a problem with Obama," he said in an interview.^[9] "I talk to Obama, I talk to Hillary, I talk to John Edwards. I have a problem that none of them are forcefully raising the social justice agenda. Why? That’s what I do. I’m a social justice leader."

Tawana Brawley controversy

On November 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley, a 15-year-old black girl, was found smeared with feces, lying in a garbage bag, her clothing torn and burned and with various slurs and epithets written on her body in charcoal. Brawley claimed she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in the village of Wappingers Falls, New York.

Attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason joined Sharpton in support of Brawley. A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury determined that Brawley had fabricated her story. Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of racism and of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for slander and ordered to pay $345,000 in damages, the jury finding Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones, Maddox for two, and Mason for one.^[41]

In 2007 Sharpton said he would have accepted the case the same as he does today. The only difference would be he would not have made it so personal with Pagones, but he still felt Brawley had a good case to go to trial. "I disagreed with the grand jury on Brawley," said Sharpton in an interview. "I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. Grand jury said there wasn’t. Okay, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O.J. Simpson was guilty. A jury said he wasn’t. So I have as much right to question a jury as they do. Does it make somebody a racist? No! They just disagreed with the jury. So did I." ^[9]

Crown Heights Riot

The Crown Heights Riot began on August 19, 1991, after a car, part of a procession led by an unmarked police car, fell behind the rest of the motorcade and sped through a red light to catch up. The car, whose driver was Jewish, was struck by another vehicle and ran onto the sidewalk, where it struck and killed a seven-year-old Guyanese boy named Gavin Cato and severely injured his cousin Angela. One of the factors that sparked the riot was the arrival of a private ambulance which, on the orders of a police officer worried for the Jewish driver's safety, removed the uninjured driver from the scene while Cato lay pinned under his car.^[42] Cato and his cousin were treated soon after by a city ambulance. Caribbean-American and African-American residents of the neighborhood rioted for four consecutive days fueled by rumors that the private ambulance had refused to treat Cato.^[42][43] During the riot blacks looted stores,^[42] beat Jews in the street,^[42] and clashed with groups of Jews, hurling rocks and bottles at one another ^[44] after Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, was stabbed and killed by a member of a mob shouting "Kill the Jew."^[45] Sharpton, who arranged a rally in Crown Heights after Cato's death,^[42] has been seen by some commentators as inflaming tensions by making remarks that included "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house"^[46] and referring to Jews as "diamond merchants."^[47]

Sharpton marched through Crown Heights and in front of "770", shortly after the riot, with about 400 protesters (who chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "No justice, no peace!"), in spite of Mayor David Dinkins' attempts to keep the march from happening.^[48]

Freddie's Fashion Mart

In 1995, Sharpton led a protest in Harlem against the plans of a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned the retail property on 125th Street to ask Fred Harari, the Jewish tenant who operated Freddie's Fashion Mart to evict his longtime subtenant, a black record store, The Record Shack.^[49][50][51] Sharpton told the protesters, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."^[52] On 1995-12-08, Roland J. Smith Jr., one of the protesters, entered the store with a gun and flammable liquid, shot several Jewish customers and employees inside the store and burned it down. He killed seven in the store, and himself.^[53][54] Sharpton claimed that the perpetrator was an open critic of himself and his nonviolent tactics. Sharpton later expressed regret for making the racial remark, "white interloper," and denied responsibility for inflaming or provoking the violence.^[12][55]

LoanMax spokesman

In November 2005, Sharpton appeared in advertisements for LoanMax, an automobile title loan company. Sharpton was criticized for appearing in the ads, as LoanMax has been accused of predatory lending charging fees, and for marketing them to primarily poor, urban and African American audiences. The ads featuring Sharpton were run in predominantly African American markets.^[56]

On December 7, 2005, he ended his relationship with LoanMax. In a letter to Rod Aycox, LoanMax president and chief executive officer, Sharpton said, "I respectfully, but firmly decline your offer for further engagement on my part, and will not engage in any business relationship to promote auto lending with LoanMax." Sharpton said he had not done the research before agreeing to the commercials.^[57]

Duke lacrosse players

The thing that gets me is, you get blamed for stuff you did not do. A lot of people think I led the Duke case. I never went to Duke; I never went to North Carolina. Never ever. They asked me to come, but I said unless I talk to the victim I’m not going. So you get criticized for what you do organize and lead, and you get criticized for stuff you had nothing to do with, just because people assume you were there. And it’s crazy!

— Sharpton on his lack of involvement in the case., ^[9]

In April 2006, Sharpton was invited on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor to discuss the case of three white Duke University lacrosse players who had been accused of raping an African American woman who was hired as a stripper at an off-campus party.^[58] In response to Bill O'Reilly's questions concerning the possibility that the woman might have fabricated the allegations, Sharpton said, "First of all, the authorities have charged there was a crime. ... When the prosecutors went forward, they clearly have said this girl is the victim, so why would we be trying the victim?" When O'Reilly mentioned recent news reports that DNA testing had failed to match any of the defendants, Sharpton said, "I think that all of the facts that you have laid out the DA had — and I know this DA is probably not one that is crazy. He would not have proceeded if he did not feel that he could convict." Later, when O'Reilly said that Sharpton didn't know what happened, Sharpton agreed. "I don't know yet and I think that the proper thing to do is to support those that want justice."^[58]

In January 2007, prosecutor Michael Nifong withdrew from the case after ethics charges related to his conduct in the case were brought against him.^[59] The North Carolina Attorney General, who replaced him, dropped charges against the accused players in April 2007 and declared that they were innocent, in light of inconsistencies in the accuser's accounts of events and the lack of any evidence supporting her claims.^[60]

On October 9, 2007, Whoopi Goldberg suggested on her television show, The View, that Sharpton owed the lacrosse players an apology. The following day she read a letter from Sharpton in which he said that he "never took a position on the case" and that "the only statement [he] made was that 'We can only assume the DA knows what he is doing'".^[61]

Accusations of racism, homophobia, and bigotry

Sharpton was quoted as saying to an audience at Kean College in 1994 that, “White folks was in caves while we was building empires ... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”^[62] Sharpton defended his comments by noting that the term “homo” was not homophobic but added that he no longer uses the term.^[63] Sharpton has since called for an end to perceived homophobia in the African-American community.^[64]

During 2007, Sharpton was accused of bigotry for comments he made on May 7, 2007, concerning presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his religion, Mormonism:

"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation."^[65][66]

In response, a representative for Romney told reporters that "bigotry toward anyone because of their beliefs is unacceptable."^[67] The Catholic League compared Sharpton to Don Imus, and said that his remarks "should finish his career".^[68]

On May 9, during an interview on Paula Zahn NOW, Sharpton said that his views on Mormonism were based on the Church's traditionally racist views regarding blacks and its interpretation of the so-called "Curse of Ham". On May 10, Sharpton called two apostles of the Mormon Church and apologized to them for his remarks; he also asked to meet with them.^[69] A spokesman for the Church confirmed that Sharpton had called and said that "we appreciate it very much, Rev. Sharpton's call, and we consider the matter closed."^[70] He also apologized to "any member of the Mormon church" who was offended by his comments.^[70] Later that month, Sharpton went to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he met with Church Elders M. Russell Ballard and Robert C. Oaks.^[71][72]

Bibliography

• Go and Tell Pharaoh, Doubleday, 1996. ISBN 0-385-47583-7
• Al on America, Dafina Books, 2002. ISBN 0-7582-0350-0

References

External links

• Al Sharpton Blog
• Al Sharpton at IMDb
• The Al Sharpton Show (talk show)
• Salon Interview with Al Sharpton
• Text of Democratic National Convention 2004 Speech
• Court TV materials on the Tawana Brawley case, including the complete 1988 grand jury report
• CNN story on the Pagones suit
• On the Issues - Al Sharpton issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org - Al Sharpton campaign contributions
• Al Sharpton 1988 Poughkeepsie march photograph by photographer/filmmaker Clay Walker