Al Sharpton
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Sharpton.jpg
The Reverend Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American politician, minister, and civil rights activist. A Pentecostal and Democrat, Sharpton was the first major black presidential candidate of the 21st century to run for the 2004 Democratic Party nomination.
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Early years
Al Sharpton was born in 1954 to a middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a boxer and landlord, owning several buildings in Brooklyn. Until the age of ten, Al lived a comfortable life in a ten-room house in Queens. He preached his first sermon at the age of four, and soon became famous in Brooklyn as the "wonderboy preacher," even touring with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. By the age of nine, he was a fully ordained minister.[1] (http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010416&c=3&s=sherman) [2] (http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1203/p01s04-uspo.html)
In 1963, his parents separated. Sharpton recalls in a 2002 interview "My daddy walked out on us, and he married my half-sister, Tina. Tina was my mother's daughter from a previous marriage." Al's mother took a job as a maid, and went on welfare; the family moved from their middle-class home in Queens to the projects in Brownsville. [3] (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/2004race/5570/index.html)
Sharpton's first attempts at protest were in high school, where the minister protested cafeteria food and the dress code. In 1969 he was appointed as youth director of Operation Breadbasket by Jesse Jackson, a group that focused on the promotion of new and better jobs for African Americans through negotiations and community-wide boycotts.
In the 1970s after two years at Brooklyn College, Sharpton dropped out to be a tour manager for James Brown, where he met his future wife, Kathy Jordan, a backup singer for James Brown, who he married in 1983. In 1971 Sharpton founded the National Youth Movement to fight drugs and raise money for impoverished youth.
Later years
Candidacies
Sharpton has run unsuccessfully for the United States Senate seat from New York in 1978, 1992, and 1994. In 1997 he ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City. Some have criticized Sharpton for only running races he knows he can't win while shunning those he could. He has never held elected office.
On January 5, 2003 Sharpton announced his candidacy for the 2004 presidential election as a member of the Democratic Party. Precisely one year later, days before the Iowa caucus, reports of connection between Sharpton's campaign management and entrenched Republican Party organizers surfaced.[4] (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0405/barrett.php)[5] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/politics/campaign/07SHAR.html)
Sharpton has been critical of the news media, charging it with ignoring his campaign due to deep-seeded racial prejudice. [6] (http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/949475.asp?cp1=1)
Sharpton's platform includes 10 key issues:
- Increase voter registration.
- Increase political consciousness and awareness.
- Stimulate more people to get involved in the political process.
- Raise issues that would otherwise be overlooked—for example, affirmative action and anti-death penalty policy.
- Strengthen our national security by fighting for human rights, the rule of law, and economic justice at home and abroad.
- Fight to ensure women's rights.
- Deliver Universal Health Care for the nation, not hidden benefits to the health care industry.
- Provide a solution to the current educational crisis in the nation caused by Bush.
- Help working people by giving them the biggest tax cuts - not the rich.
- Fulfill American democracy by supporting voting rights or statehood for the 600,000 disenfranchised citizens of the District of Columbia.
To his supporters Sharpton is a loyal defender of the underrepresented poor and disenfranchised who has been supporting his community for 30 years. Critics of Sharpton accuse him of being a profiteering racial agitator, inserting himself into instances of racial tension in order to increase his own popularity, often making situations more tense. Many Jews see him as anti-Semitic.
On March 15th, 2004, Sharpton announced his endorsement of leading Democratic candidate John Kerry. However, Sharpton did not withdraw from the race, continuing instead to campaign and striving to win delegates for the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
Celebrity status
Because of his demeanor and personality, Sharpton has become something of a minor celebrity and has been featured in many movies and television shows. He had cameo appearances in the movies Cold Feet, Bamboozled and Mr. Deeds and in episodes of the television shows New York Undercover, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Girlfriends, My Wife and Kids, and Boston Legal. He also hosted the original Spike TV reality television show, I Hate My Job.
Quotes
"I believe something happened to Tawana Brawley.... I think it is absurd that someone would say that a 15-year-old girl could have made all that up, including fooling a hospital.""I mean, Dwight Eisenhower was never elected to anything before he was elected president.... In a time that we no longer have a Cold War, there is no real threat to American security."
— on Fox News August 2001"Now that they have achieved the capture of Hussein, they should appeal to the UN to come in with a multilateral redevelopment plan. This is all the more reason this war should come to an immediate end."
"Who defines terrorists? Today's terrorist is tomorrow's friend. We were the ones that worked with Saddam Hussein. The United States worked with bin Laden."
"That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us."
— Address to the Democratic National Convention 2004 talking about Abraham Lincoln's promise of forty acres and a mule to each freed slave
"But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody."
— Address to the Democratic National Convention 2004
"I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the [Supreme] court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school."
—Address to the Democratic National Convention 2004
"Don't P**s on my leg and tell me it's raining."
—To Vincente Fox, President of Mexico, after remarks made that seemed to disparage African Americans
External links
- Salon Interview with Al Sharpton (http://www.salon.com/weekly/sharpton2.html)
- 80s Icon Al Sharpton (http://www.80s.com/Icons/Bios/al_sharpton.html)
- Text of Democratic National Convention 2004 Speech (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21903-2004Jul28.html)
- The grand jury report on the Brawley case (http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/newsmakers/tawana/part1.html#events)
- A CNN story on the Pagones suit (http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/13/brawley.verdict.02/)
- A pro-Brawley article on her first public appearance in years (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/487.html)