TOP: The Rev. Al Sharpton speaks at a news conference in 1989 with Tawana Brawley, who claimed to have been raped and tortured by six men — allegations that were eventually proven false. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: Sharpton in 1983, 1995, 2006 and 2012.
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
[From article]
The group was composed of 25 pastors, organizers and community leaders from across the country, all of whom were members of Sharpton’s National Action Network, and all of whom had traveled to New York in early January at Sharpton’s request and expense.
[. . .]
Sharpton had spent most of his career railing against the American power establishment, but now he was a linchpin of it,
[. . .]
He had been so intent on finding a righteous cause during those early years that he had sometimes acted as the agitator, railing against “white interlopers” and Jewish “diamond merchants,” and spending months demanding justice for Tawana Brawley only to have her allegations of gang rape by a mob of white attackers turn out to be a hoax.
[. . .]
when Sharpton organized a “Justice for All” march in Washington that drew 10,000 people, a group of young activists had rushed the stage and tried to seize control of the microphone before Sharpton arrived. Why, they asked, did they need VIP passes to go backstage at a protest march for the people? Why should they trust Sharpton to be antiestablishment when he was a friend and loyal defender of the president?
[. . .]
“How come Sharpton’s leading the march? ’Cause I organized the march. I brought the crowd. I got the permit. Those Porta-Potties cost us $20,000. You want to run the march? Fine. Get your own damn Porta-Potties.”
[. . .]
Sharpton had been running through the terminal at the Newark airport late one night, trying to make a flight, when a woman stopped and asked him to shake hands with her 10-year-old son. “He’s too young to know much about Martin Luther King,” Sharpton remembered the woman saying. “He won’t know Jesse Jackson. All he’s got is you, so I hope you never let him down.”
[. . .]
Sharpton also believed that some of King’s work was being undone: schools resegregating, the Voting Rights Act being disassembled by the Supreme Court, income inequality at historic levels and a continued racial bias in policing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/02/07/the-public-life-and-private-doubts-of-al-sharpton/
The public life and private doubts of
Al Sharpton
Written by Eli Saslow
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
Published on February 7, 2015
[From article]
The group was composed of 25 pastors, organizers and community leaders from across the country, all of whom were members of Sharpton’s National Action Network, and all of whom had traveled to New York in early January at Sharpton’s request and expense.
[. . .]
Sharpton had spent most of his career railing against the American power establishment, but now he was a linchpin of it,
[. . .]
He had been so intent on finding a righteous cause during those early years that he had sometimes acted as the agitator, railing against “white interlopers” and Jewish “diamond merchants,” and spending months demanding justice for Tawana Brawley only to have her allegations of gang rape by a mob of white attackers turn out to be a hoax.
[. . .]
when Sharpton organized a “Justice for All” march in Washington that drew 10,000 people, a group of young activists had rushed the stage and tried to seize control of the microphone before Sharpton arrived. Why, they asked, did they need VIP passes to go backstage at a protest march for the people? Why should they trust Sharpton to be antiestablishment when he was a friend and loyal defender of the president?
[. . .]
“How come Sharpton’s leading the march? ’Cause I organized the march. I brought the crowd. I got the permit. Those Porta-Potties cost us $20,000. You want to run the march? Fine. Get your own damn Porta-Potties.”
[. . .]
Sharpton had been running through the terminal at the Newark airport late one night, trying to make a flight, when a woman stopped and asked him to shake hands with her 10-year-old son. “He’s too young to know much about Martin Luther King,” Sharpton remembered the woman saying. “He won’t know Jesse Jackson. All he’s got is you, so I hope you never let him down.”
[. . .]
Sharpton also believed that some of King’s work was being undone: schools resegregating, the Voting Rights Act being disassembled by the Supreme Court, income inequality at historic levels and a continued racial bias in policing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/02/07/the-public-life-and-private-doubts-of-al-sharpton/
The public life and private doubts of
Al Sharpton
Written by Eli Saslow
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
Published on February 7, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment