Al Sharpton facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Reverend Al Sharpton
Sharpton in 2023
Born	Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (1954-10-03) October 3, 1954 (age 70) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Baptist minister Civil rights/social justice activist Radio and television talk show host
Years active	1969–present
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Marsha Tinsley (less than a year) Kathy Jordan ​ ​ (m. 1980; separated 2004)​
Children	2

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptist minister, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rights organization. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts a weekday radio talk show, Keepin' It Real, which is nationally syndicated by Urban One, and he is a political analyst and weekend host for MSNBC, hosting PoliticsNation.

Early life

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, to Ada (née Richards) and Alfred Charles Sharpton Sr. Shaprton has Cherokee roots. He preached his first sermon at the age of four and toured with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.

In 1963, Sharpton's father left his wife to have a relationship with Sharpton's half-sister. Ada 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.

Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, and attended Brooklyn College, dropping out after two years in 1975. In 1972, he accepted the position of youth director for the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. Between the years 1973 and 1980 Sharpton served as James Brown's tour manager.

Activism

In 1969, Sharpton was appointed by Jesse Jackson to serve as youth director of the New York City branch of Operation Breadbasket, a group that focused on the promotion of new and better jobs for African Americans.

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

Sharpton in Bensonhurst, 1989

National Action Network

Al Sharpton at National Action Network's headquarters

In 1991, Sharpton founded the National Action Network, an organization designed to increase voter education, to provide services to those in poverty, and to support small community businesses. In 2016, Boise Kimber, an associate of Sharpton and a member of his NAN national board, along with businessman and philanthropist Don Vaccaro, launched Grace Church Websites, a non-profit organization that helps churches create and launch their own websites.

Reclaim the Dream commemorative march

Sharpton speaking at the National Action Network's march in support of the American Jobs Act, October 15, 2011

Rev. Al Sharpton outside of New York City Police Department Headquarters, 1999

Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, where Sharpton was imprisoned

Talk show host Michael Baisden and Al Sharpton, at the front of the September 20, 2007, march in Jena, Louisiana

On August 28, 2010, Sharpton and other civil rights leaders led a march to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the historic March on Washington. After gathering at Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., thousands of people marched five miles to the National Mall.

Rev. Sharpton and Eric Garner's widow, Esaw Garner (right) in Staten Island, protesting the killing of Eric Garner, July 19, 2014

Barack Obama

In 2014, Glenn Thrush of Politico described Sharpton as an "adviser" to President Barack Obama and as Obama's "go-to man" on racial issues.

Ministers March for Justice

On August 28, 2017, the fifty-fourth anniversary of the March on Washington at which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, Sharpton organized the Ministers March for Justice, promising to bring a thousand members of the clergy to Washington, D.C., to deliver a "unified moral rebuke" to President Donald Trump. Several thousand religious leaders were present, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote that "President Trump has united us, after all. He brought together the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Jews."

Kwanzaa and Hanukkah

In December 2022, taking a stand together against the increasing instances of racism and antisemitism in the United States, Sharpton, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Vista Equity Partners CEO and Carnegie Hall Chairman Robert F. Smith, Reverend Conrad Tillard, World Values Network founder and CEO Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and Elisha Wiesel joined to host 15 Days of Light, celebrating Hanukkah and Kwanzaa in a unifying holiday ceremony at Carnegie Hall. Sharpton said: "There is never a time more needed than now for Blacks and Jews to remember the struggle that we've gone through. You can't fight for anybody if you don't fight for everybody. I cannot fight for Black rights if I don't fight for Jewish rights ... because then it becomes a matter of self-aggrandizement rather than fighting for humanity. It's easy for Blacks to stand up for racism. It's easy for Jews to stand up to antisemitism. But if you want to really be a leader, you got to speak as a Black against antisemitism and antisemites, and you got to speak as a Jew against racism."

Personal life

In 1971 while touring with James Brown, Sharpton met future wife Kathy Jordan, who was a backing singer. Sharpton and Jordan married in 1980. The couple separated in 2004. They have two daughters, Ashley and Dominique. In July 2013, the New York Daily News reported that Sharpton, while still married to his second wife (Kathy Jordan), now had a self-described "girlfriend", Aisha McShaw, aged 35, and that the couple had "been an item for months.... photographed at elegant bashes all over the country". McShaw, the Daily News reported, referred to herself professionally as both a "personal stylist" and "personal banker".

Sharpton is an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.

Religion

Sharpton was licensed and ordained a Pentecostal minister by Bishop F. D. Washington at the age of nine or ten. 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 Augustus Jones and became a Baptist minister.

During 2007, Sharpton participated in a public debate with atheist writer Christopher Hitchens, defending his religious faith and his belief in the existence of God.

Political campaigns

Sharpton with President Joe Biden and Representative Nancy Pelosi in 2023

Sharpton attending the 2008 Democratic National Convention

Sharpton watches as President Barack Obama signs an executive order on July 26, 2012

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, saying in an interview: "Much of the media criticism of me assumes their goals and they impose them on me. 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." 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. During his 1992 bid, he and his wife lived in a home in Englewood, New Jersey, though he said his residence was an apartment in Brooklyn.

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".

In 2009, the Federal Election Commission announced it had levied a fine of $285,000 against Sharpton's 2004 presidential campaign team for breaking campaign finance rules during his bid for President.

Sharpton said in 2007 that he would not enter the 2008 presidential race.

Electoral history

U.S. Senate (1992, 1994)

Mayor of New York City (1997)

President of the United States (2004)

Television appearances

Sharpton at a book-signing in Harlem, 2008

Sharpton has made cameo appearances in the movies Cold Feet, Bamboozled, Mr. Deeds, and Malcolm X. He also has appeared in episodes of the television shows New York Undercover, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Girlfriends, My Wife and Kids, Rescue Me 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 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.

In 1988, during an appearance on The Morton Downey Jr. Show, Sharpton and Congress of Racial Equality National Chairman Roy Innis got into a heated argument about the Tawana Brawley case and Innis shoved Sharpton to the floor.

In 1999, Sharpton appeared in a documentary about black nationalism hosted by Louis Theroux, as part of the 'Weird Weekends' series.

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

Broadcast hosting

In June 2005, Sharpton signed a contract with Matrix Media to produce and host a live two-hour daily talk program, but it never aired. In November 2005, Sharpton signed with Radio One to host a daily national talk radio program, which began airing on January 30, 2006, entitled Keepin It Real with Al Sharpton.

On August 29, 2011, Sharpton became the host of PoliticsNation, the MSNBC show which originally aired weeknights during the 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time hour. In October 2015 the program was moved to Sunday mornings, one hour per week. He continues to be a regular contributor to Morning Joe.

Books

Sharpton has written or co-written four books, Go and Tell Pharaoh, with Nick Chiles, Al on America, The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership, and Rise Up: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads.

See also

In Spanish: Al Sharpton para niños

• List of civil rights leaders
• Abner Louima