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[room noise in microphone]
[string music]
We begin tonight with a man who's been called everything
from a troublemaker and charlatan
to a one-person civil rights movement.
Media manipulator, a rabble-rouser,
a tireless harbinger of racial discord.
A blabbermouth, a loudmouth, too flamboyant, or an agitator,
a racist, a race-baiter.
-Yeah. -[Interviewer]: Right?
-Oh yeah. -All of those things?
Right.
The question that I always hear from whites,
"Reverend Al, why do you make everything about race?"
The white media has painted Reverend Al Sharpton
with a broad stroke.
The Black media rejects this negative image.
And the Black question that's just as troubling is,
"Why are you doin' that? Ain't nothin' gonna change."
And that's the price you pay
or that's the price you want to pay?
That's the price you pay for being someone
that gets involved in a high-profile fight
all for things you believe in.
It's somewhere between these two questions
that I've had to do a lot of my work in activism.
Many people in the Black community see him
as reflecting the spirit of such men as Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey,
Dr. King, and his mentor, Adam Clayton Powell.
[Female interviewer]: You're a civil rights leader.
And then there's this other side of you, you know?
You live in a fancy place--
First of all, I don't see that as a contradiction.
We fought for access.
I think he's in the civil rights business.
I don't think he's a civil rights leader.
To explain to whites that every Black born in America
is born into "it's all about race."
[string music]
The story of the lion and the hunter would be a lot different
if the lion could read and write.
[President Lyndon Johnson] My fellow Americans,
I am about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The reason the hunter always comes off glorious
is he's the one that writes the story.
Let us close the springs of racial poison.
[Sharpton]: The lion is always depicted as less than
what he is.
Let us lay aside irrelevant differences
and make our nation whole.
And that has been the problem with many of us
that have fought the system in various ways.
[indistinct chatter]
But the system writes the story.
[Reporter]: In more than 100 cities,
violence broke out.
[Reporter]: Detroit is afire.
100 square blocks are now under siege.
Looting, murder, and arson have nothing to do with civil rights.
We've legitimatized opposition to the police
and disobedience to law.
Shoot me, goddamn it!
Dr. Martin Luther King
has been shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.
[Reporter]: What effect Martin Luther King's death
has had on you?
They're bending over backwards to idolize him.
-[Man]: I am! -[Crowd]: I am!
-Somebody! -[Crowd]: Somebody!
-I am! -I am!
-[Crowd]: I am! -Somebody!
I stand before you today as a candidate
for the Democratic nomination
for the presidency of the United States of America.
[applause]
I am not the candidate of Black America,
although I am Black and proud.
The way to end discrimination against some
is not to begin discrimination against others.
[Reporter]: New York City has more racial tensions
than any other American city.
Goetz shot four young men on the subway.
The shootings on the crime-ridden
transportation system touched off a wide debate,
with some calling the man a hero.
Reverend Sharpton is a relatively new face
among New York activists,
and is asking the US Attorney to have Goetz indicted
on charges of violating the young mens' civil rights.
Every time we come into a case,
the first thing we have to do
is fight the wrong narrative of the story.
The issue here is there was no mugging.
They talk about subway punks?
Nobody proved they were subway punks.
They would try to criminalize and demonize the victim.
The issue here is there was an illusion in his mind,
that he has a right to shoot people with that illusion.
[Reporter]: Were there racial slurs?
No, there were no racial slurs.
[Reporter]: Did anybody say "nigger," the word?
Maybe the word "nigger" was said.
If they behaved themsleves in this neighborhood,
maybe they could walk the streets and be free.
Is your community racist, yes or no?
[Al Sharpton]: Every fight that I've fought
to use for a bigger issue, 'cause people don't understand
that it's not just the case.
Is the criminal justice system working for people?
[shouts of "No!"]
Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart.
Nobody went to jail on any case.
You are, though, a media animal.
If you're an activist, the media is a tool
to get your message across.
We've got to turn these stations upside down!
They like to fight, so let's fight!
We demand a special prosecutor.
Special prosecutor.
We need a permanent special prosecutor
to investigate racial crime.
Sometimes you have to be loud to let people know
that is not the real story.
You people are making it racist.
No one looked at it that way
until you people started to brainwash people.
[Sharpton]: We must deal with reality.
Either we have a racial problem
or Black people have a mass hallucination going.
All of our lives you had to fight
to make sure that you controlled the story.
And I want the folks at CBS to know,
if you can't tell the story right,
don't tell it at all!
One of these days I'm going in the door,
and I'm gonna give 'em the news.
Al Sharpton has some photographers
who are videotaping us as we are being videotaped for you.
We don't know exactly what purpose it'll be used for,
but we do wanna make note of it.
Because whoever wrote the story is gonna write it
and slant it their way.
[string music]
[city traffic]
[funk music]
Whatever you do, Reverend Al told you personally,
Keep it real.
Keep it real!
Talk to you tomorrow.
Alrighty.
Good evening and welcome to PoliticsNation.
As the impeachment inquiry
into President Trump's abuses of power continues,
2020 candidates will have to thread the needle
while campaigning with voters.
You and I may disagree on politics,
but you're one of the smart analysts
and observers of politics.
If the president is impeached,
how will it affect the 2020 election, general election?
Well, thank you, Al, for the kind words--
I think you've got happy birthday cheer
overflowing in your cup, there.
I appreciate that. Um, I--
[car horn honks]
Right, after the TV show Saturday.
What I'm trying to say is
I want to do the TV show from 30 Rock Saturday,
go down to and speak at Howard,
and fly back and do the TV show again from 30 Rock Saturday.
-Appreciate you, Rev. -Thank you.
-Keep fighting. -I'm gonna try.
-[Sharpton]: Hey. -Happy birthday.
What's up?
Everything good?
65, Doc.
[laughing]
You're going to my--your first Grandpa's birthday.
Happy Birthday, Grandpapa!
You lookin' in the camera?
You like cameras already, huh?
This is for the Democratic debate?
[Woman]: Yes.
It's the only one that looks pretty decent.
[Sharpton]: Well, let's go with it.
[siren wailing]
[phone ringing]
[Reporter]: What's so special about having
some of your famous friends here tonight?
[Sharpton]: It's always good to have these kind of people
wish you a happy birthday.
We fight a lot. We struggle a lot.
And for them to find some value in our work is important,
especially now in this day of Donald Trump,
where a lot of what we have fought for is at risk.
It's time for all of us to come together
and really show we're gonna stand together
and protect voting rights and civil rights.
One, two, three, four
[James Brown's Get Up plays]
Get up, get on up
Stay on the scene, get on up
Like a sex machine, get on up
[Man]: I watched you on television, you're great.
I mean, really, really-- you're really good.
[Sharpton]: There's one of the Central Park 5.
[overlapping voices]
[Sharpton]: Randall, let him know
I'm mic'ed for a documentary, so don't say nothin' stupid.
We told him.
That's right!
[Sharpton]: I raised you well.
[laughs] Birthday boy!
Thanks for coming.
You know what I was thinking?
-We're still here. -We're still here.
Man, we're still kicking.
[applause]
[Chuck Schumer]: Raise your glasses
to the great and wonderful birthday
of Reverend Al Sharpton!
[cheers and applause]
I wanna say a few things.
First, we know how much he has done to defend civil rights,
to defend the America of its highest ideals.
Are you in any way predicting a long, hot summer?
You're not predicting urban strife.
You're not predicting disorder, or anything like that?
Well, what I'm saying is, you know,
at home, you have an oven.
You have flames on top of the oven.
And then there's heat in the oven.
We always discuss whether there'll be a flame on the top,
and don't discuss that it's already 600 degrees inside.
And he has been relentless in doing that
for close to 50 years.
[cheers and applause]
I'm not concerned as much about a long, hot summer,
because it's been a long, hot winter.
How do we cool the long oven out?
Let's not wait for the explosion
and then just cut the flames off upstairs.
Let's put the flame out inside.
Thank you, James Brown, for being with us again.
I spent my entire career working in media.
I've been at NBC News for almost 35 years.
I always tell people, if you wanna understand the media world
and how it's changed,
you follow the life of Reverend Al Sharpton.
"Hate on Earth."
That's how the New York Daily News described
a savage racial attack in New York City last weekend.
The attack took place
in a predominately white neighborhood.
The victims were three Black men whose car had broken down.
[Richard Valeriani]: The Howard Beach section of Queens,
where the attack occurred, is an almost all-white
working class neighborhood near Kennedy Airport.
And it is known for its hostility to Blacks.
The three Blacks were attacked outside this pizzeria
after midnight Friday.
They had walked about 3 miles to the pizzeria
in search of a telephone after their car broke down.
One of the victims, Cedric Sandiford,
told the newspaper Newsday the attacker houted,
"Niggers, you're in the wrong neighborhood!"
He said he was hollering, "God, don't kill us!"
Griffith will be buried tomorrow.
Richard Valeriani, NBC News, New York.
[camera shutters clicking]
[police radio chatter]
[Sharpton unintelligible]
We must now go to the next step,
that is vigilence.
We must be there Monday.
We must stay on Santucci. We must not let Cuomo be silent.
I'm very upset that the governor is not here tonight.
The governor comes from Queens.
The governor hasn't opened his mouth yet.
We must not leave here tonight saying the funeral is over,
they're gonna have a race harmony parade tomorrow,
and whoop-de-doo, we must say we're gonna be at
Santucci's door Monday.
We're going to monitor the lawyers of the family
and Santucci, and make sure that justice is done.
This is serious.
Racism is alive and well in New York.
We just buried a boy. And the only thing he did wrong
was he was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
How do you feel about the press conference earlier,
Attorney Maddox to make comments on the allegations?
[Sharpton]: I heard...
There was always these racial incidents
and racial boundaries.
We knew not to go in certain neighborhoods.
Fights between various segments of the city and Blacks.
[police radio chatter]
When I graduated junior high school in '68,
I couldn't go to school the first two months
because there had been a teacher strike.
The Black Community School Board
wanted to fire some white teachers in Brownsville.
And the teachers had a strike, closed the schools down.
[Reporter]: What kind of scars
do you think this is gonna leave?
Yes, there will be scars.
The teachers must realize that
the communities must be heard.
This kind of trauma and back-and-forth
was the climate in New York.
[Ed Koch]: Good morning!
I'm Ed Koch running for mayor.
I need your help.
Nice to say hello. How am I doing?
[Sharpton]: In the '80s, Ed Koch
immediately cut a lot of the programs
that serviced our community.
We had Neighborhood Youth Corps.
We had Manpower Training and Development.
We had Model Cities.
Many of these things Adam Clayton Powell had
put through Congress called the Anti-Poverty Programs.
Koch would run around, talking about, "They're poverty pimps.
"They're misusing public funds."
If we had given to the poor people
all the money that we had appropriated
for the poor people, the poor would be rich!
Instead, we allowed poverty pimps to skim it off.
And he was a Democrat, but he could play to that side.
And that created tension.
[chanting]
[Sharpton]: That led all the way up to Bernhard Goetz, '84.
'85 was the mayor's race.
And '86 was Howard Beach.
And I barely went home to change clothes since then.
[chuckles]
[Man]: We know how Howard Beach are.
Howard Beach is no joke!
They never welcomed Black people in this neighborhood.
See a Black person, a colored person,
first thing is you yell at them, you know?
This is the way it is in this neighborhood.
We had great leaders in New York--
Adam Powell, Malcolm X, and all.
But I wanted to expose what they spoke about.
Black is beautiful. Black is beautiful.
We're gonna walk side by side with you or through you.
It's gotta be with dignity and integrity!
We don't want any more than you have,
and we're not gonna accept any less than you have.
It's one thing to have a great orator
that talks about the wickedness, the hatred of people.
It's another thing for you to make them put them lens
and show these guys calling you a nigger
in New York City, in the '80s.
[shouts of "Nigger!"]
Racism, huh?
Tell the fucker go home.
-Go home, niggers! -No media, go home!
This is who they are.
This is who keeps us from going to good schools.
This is who makes us have
certain levels of employment we couldn't get.
This is who they really are.
This is your street? Fuck you! White street! White street! White street!
[Jesse Jackson]: Given the racism in the country,
we are the last hired and the first fired.
In times of war, the first drafted
and the first to die.
When the nation proper is underemployed,
we're unemployed, and then stigmatized for being that way.
[Sharpton]: All of the activists,
the ones that I've studied and emulated,
came at a time when what we wanted to say,
people did not want to hear.
So you had to be loud
because you were not invited to address the public.
Reverend Sharpton has organized
a youth rally for tomorrow afternoon in Howard Beach.
He says it's to show the public that young Black men
have the right to peacefully demonstrate
in the predominantly white section of Howard Beach.
[Man]: I want you to start assembling
so we can start distributing the armbands to the marchers.
[Sharpton]: I could've made a speech,
but I decided we'd go out there
and let them make the speech for me.
[indistinct chatter]
No, no. Don't put words in my mouth.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying they had no business at that time,
four hours after their car breaks down,
to be eating pizza over there.
Just because this is Howard Beach, an all-white community,
the media is what caused all of this!
[crowd shouts "Equal rights for whites!"]
[chants "Howard Beach, have you heard, this is not Johannesburg]
[Man]: Fucking bullshit!
Peace? You want a piece of us?
You motherfuckers!
These are people who are saying that they are opposed to someone
being killed by a mob,
and there's actually community residents who would come out
to support somebody being killed by a mob.
I mean, that's a kind of collective insanity.
That's a whole community that's nuts.
Which is what racism does.
It drives the racists crazy.
All right?
We're gonna ask all the people to be in the green area.
Please cooperate with security.
[Sharpton:] Everybody sing
Amen, amen, amen
Remember Michael Griffith
[Sharpton]: I was baptized by Bishop Washington
when I was three.
The next year is when I started preaching.
And I've been preaching ever since.
A little bit louder
All a preacher does is take biblical stories
and use the story to therefore get to the moral message
or ethical message they're projecting.
I transfer that into social justice,
whether it is Michael Griffith being killed in Howard Beach
or whether it's somebody choked to death by a cop
in Staten Island years later, Eric Gardner.
It is the story, but the issue is racial violence.
But you need the story to make the issue live.
[shouting]
Can we hear now from Reverend-- our singing minister--Sharpton?
Reverend Al Sharpton.
Al Sharpton. Brief words.
Twenty years ago, World War II ended,
with one race of people at their Holocaust saying, "Never again."
We've heard for 40 years people remind us of that
while we have been raped, while we have been murdered,
while we have been exploited, while we have been denied.
Here we stand in New York City,
Howard Beach,
where people used to come from the South for opportunity.
Where people used to come from the Caribbean
feeling their problems would be over.
Now they don't even know
if their children can get home at night--
not because they did something wrong,
but because of the color of their skin.
I come today to say to Governor Cuomo,
who's been silent during this whole crisis,
who hasn't opened his mouth,
even though he comes from Queens.
He's got political laryngitis.
To Mayor Koch and the rest of them,
that we did not have our children to be target practice
for some white mobs that can't behave themselves!
Never again will we come and weep!
We will organize!
We will go to the precinct!
We will go to Santucci!
We will go wherever we got to go
until you leave our children alone!
Next day, front page of The New York Times--
they had been ignoring all of this stuff--
was us standing in front of that pizzeria in Howard Beach.
[Mason] Howard Beach, have you heard?
You are Johannesburg.
[Sharpton]: It was at that rally I met Mason and Maddox.
And they said, we have a legal strategy
of noncooperation.
You keep doing what you doing, we'll do what we're doing.
[Reporter]: Attorneys Vernon Mason and Alton Maddox,
representing the surviving victims,
says Sandiford and Timothy Grimes
would not testify
until Governor Cuomo appoints a special prosecutor.
People know that in this city
that no white person has ever been convicted
of murdering a Black person.
The argument was that the local Queens district attorney
was not gonna indict these kids
because he did not want to offend
the voters in Howard Beach.
[Reporter]: Some believe that Blacks are responsible for
most of the crime in their area.
When they rob us, nobody does anything about it.
There are white racists, there are Black racists.
But the vast majority of people
in every one of those groups is decent.
I think that unfortunately, Howard Beach was inevitable.
It's an inevitable result of a national climate
of an absence of national leadership which says,
people's rights, people's civil rights, must be protected.
A lot of white people can't understand this.
New York City is the Birmingham of the '80s.
[Sharpton]: We felt the only way
that we would get an impartial grand jury
is if someone outside of the politics of the county
were to investigate the case.
If you can't prosecute the lynch mob for murder,
the Griffith family does not want anything less than that.
Nothing can work, and nothing can work as it should, at least,
without Sandiford testifying.
Why did Dr. King march from Selma to Montgomery
when they could've flown in in an hour?
[shouting]
[Sharpton]: It was that daily walk
that arrested the attention of the country.
People are marching in Alabama for the right to vote, day one.
Day three, they're still marching.
It was drama.
[shouting, chanting]
And I'm bringing all of this into
what we were doing in New York.
The Post called us loudmouths yesterday.
But I think if the Post understands history,
They will understand that
they're putting us in some good company.
[cheers and applause]
We're coming. The summer is here.
And we have a new saying.
-No justice-- -[Crowd]: No peace.
We'd finally got to where the legal strategy worked
as we kept agitating.
Governor Mario Cuomo appointed a special prosecutor.
This is a special episode.
It has lifted tensions to a special level.
It requires a special response.
And that's what we intend by all that we have done here today.
[string music]
[Man]: So I'm gonna turn your speaker up a little bit.
[Sharpton]: Okay.
[Man]: Okay.
[Man]: Airing commercial.
[chatter]
[Man]: Okay, we're back.
This Wednesday, MSNBC and The Washington Post
are cohosting the next presidential debate
in Atlanta, Georgia.
The event will feature
the leading 10 Democratic contenders,
and I will be there front and center for all of the action.
-Hi, how are you doing? -I'm good, how are you?
I'm all right. How y'all doing?
Good, how are you doing?
-All right, how's everybody? -Good to see you.
Did you-- Did you call Holly and them?
'Cause I want to go in the media room.
-I'm following you? -Yes, sir!
Martin! I think I changed my mind.
I'm gonna announce tonight I'm gonna run again.
[laughing]
That's not a bad idea.
[Woman]: We'll send Yolanda to be your cabinet.
Cabinet?
She gonna be on top of the ticket.
I'm gonna be--
[laughing] --vice president.
[indistinct chatter]
We love you in Savannah, Georgia, man.
-Thank you. -You don't come enough.
-Thank you, sir. -All right, thank you.
How are you?
Marty Baron, Washington Post. How are you?
-All right, how you been? -Good.
You might wanna get the shot.
They got me sitting between the chairman of the party
and the mayor.
[indistinct chatter]
[Sharpton]: Candidate for 2020 presidential nomination
Andrew Yang.
Amy Klobuchar.
[Amy Klobuchar]: Thank you!
Tom Steyer.
Senator Cory Booker.
Pete Buttigieg.
This election is going to be
one of the most important in American history.
And certainly the most important in our lifetime.
Voting rights is under attack.
And this president has put over 150 federal judges on the bench,
most of who for a lifetime.
If we don't fight and raise the level of conversation
to where it oughta be, then who's gonna do it?
That's why I wanted us to hear
some of the candidates this morning.
All of them came to our national convention.
But I wanted some to come and greet us,
because I still say the strength of our community, the backbone,
is and always has been the Black church.
[Man]: Definitely!
[Sharpton]: But Reggie's preaching this morning,
Don't let me get going.
[laughing]
[applause]
-[Woman]: Thank you, Reverend. -Thank you.
[Reginald T Jackson]: My brothers and sisters,
our nation is on the verge of shipwreck.
-[Man]: All right. -[Man]: Yes, sir.
[Jackson]: And it's imperative that the Black church
again be the conscience of the nation.
[audience affirming]
[Jackson]: God did not just call us to be priestly.
He also called us to be prophetic.
Too many of us are content just to be priestly.
We don't wanna rock the boat!
We don't wanna challenge the system!
Maybe they'll give us a proclamation.
Maybe they'll invite us to give the invocation.
Maybe they'll invite us to lunch at the governor's house.
But God has called us to be prophetic.
To speak truth to power.
[applause]
Brothers and sisters, 2020 is gonna demonstrate
whether we are prophetic or pathetic.
[audience affirming]
[Jackson]: God wants us not only to praise him!
He wants us to serve him!
That's why I like the name, the National Action Network.
We've gotta have some action!
We gotta go to work!
We've gotta turn the world upside down!
Black leaders are planning massive demonstrations
in New York tomorrow to protest what they say
is rampant racial violence.
The demonstrations come as a decision is awaited
in a racial attack case that's getting national attention.
Richard Schlesinger has our report.
[Richard Schlesinger]: One year after Michael Griffith died,
a jury is still trying to decide if a gang of white youths
chased him to his death on a busy highway,
or if it was all just a tragic accident.
After 11 days, there is still no verdict.
My feeling is that we're coming to an end.
[Schlesinger]: Black activists who have watched
the trial closely plan a mass demonstration tomorrow
to tie up traffic,
despite a judge's order hastily issued today to stop them.
We marched in Howard Beach.
And we were called niggers.
They threw sticks at us.
Nobody gave them a restraining order.
No one has been restrained through this whole crisis
but Black leadership.
[Reporter]: Mr. Maddox, what's your reaction, sir?
[Maddox]: The police department informed us
that we do not have the right to freely travel on certain days.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution
is being trampled upon.
The nerve of them to use legal apparatus on the victims
while they still have not addressed the victimizers.
So he can get his best handcuffs ready for me tomorrow.
We intend to block the bridges.
We intend to block subway trains.
We intend to block the Long Island Railroad.
And we intend to send Johnson and Ben Ward
their order back, so the next time they have diarrhea,
they can use a box of Maalox and this order.
[laughing]
[chanting]
[Man]: I want you to line up behind
the brothers and sisters in the front.
Listen to me very carefully.
The entire area is surrounded by the police.
And there are many who are not in uniform.
There are many inside the march.
Their plan is start a contradiction in the march.
If anyone starts any shit in the march, get 'em out of the march.
We will not allow them to deter what we are trying to do.
And most important, be courageous!
Be fearless!
Don't let anybody down!
[cheering]
[whistle blowing]
[Crowd chants: "No Justice, no peace!"]
[shouting]
Get out of the way! Get out of the way!
Move, move!
[Crowd chants: "No justice! No peace!"]
[motorcycle revs loudly]
[sirens wailing]
[rapid footsteps]
[sirens wailing]
Freedom way. Don't you let Mayor Koch
Turn you around, turn you around
Turn you around
Don't you let nobody turn you around
Keep on walking
[shouts of "No justice, no peace!"]
[shouts of "No peace!"]
[Sharpton]: We're here!
This train will not move until they move us!
They arrested 214 of us on false charges.
So if they can't ride us fair
they don't need to ride!
[shouting]
[shouts of "No justice, no peace!"]
Brothers and sisters...
This is the most monumental occasion.
This is a most monumental occasion.
This is the beginning of a civil rights movement
in the city of New York.
Michael Stewart was killed in one of these tunnels.
And we are here in his memory.
We're here in the memory of Michael Griffith,
of Yvonne Smallwood, and all the countless others
whose lives have been taken away from us
by racist oppressors.
This city will never be the same after this day.
For 10 years, for 10 years
we marched up and down these streets.
For 10 years, for 10 years, we demonstrated.
So now we've raised it to the level of civil disobedience.
You talk bad, Ben Ward!
You talk bad, Koch!
You came in the midnight hours and served us.
Now we're here to serve you.
Come on with it!
We're ready to go.
We told you we'd be here.
We're here!
We ain't taking no more!
[Crowd chants:] We're fired up!
We ain't taking no more!
We're fired up, we ain't taking no more!
Fired up, we ain't taking no more!
Fired up!
[clapping]
[Male anchor]: Echoes of a verdict.
They rode over New York and the nation today
after a jury convicted three young white men
and acquitted a fourth
in the death of a Black man just a year ago.
That fatal outburst of mob violence
etched the words "Howard Beach" on the nation's consciousness.
And the anger, white and Black,
didn't end with the jury's verdict.
[Reporter]: Mason and other Black leaders
spent the night in jail.
They were arrested yesterday
when a group of about 500 protestors
blocked rush hour traffic.
It was called a Day of Outrage--
outrage which continued today despite attempts by city leaders
to put the best face on the verdict.
Mayor Koch says he's not gonna give any special treatment
to any of the people arrested in the Day of Outrage.
The Day of Outrage, as they refer to it,
took place before the verdict
in the Howard Beach case.
They were knocking it, condemning it, before
they knew what it was.
Is that the way to get your way?
To demonstrate and to impose yourself?
'Cause I don't think that's what Blacks or whites want.
[Reporter]: It would be safe to say, though,
that you're not hailing last night's verdict
as justice in New York City.
We want to hold comment.
We have to bury Yvonne Smallwood
tomorrow night in the Bronx.
28-year-old Black mother of four children
beaten to death by New York City policemen in the Bronx.
And so we're gonna have this funeral tomorrow night.
This struggle of racism and racially motivated violence
in New York City is not over with.
The Howard Beach verdict does not end anything.
[indistinct chatter]
We have everything in this movement.
We have nationalists.
We have revolutionaries.
We have people who want to overthrow the government.
[shouting, cheering, applause]
And the reason why we will continue to have
everything in this movement,
because it frightens white folks
when we have everything in this movement.
[cheers and applause]
It lets white folks know that we might be Malcolm today
and Martin Luther King tomorrow.
[cheering, shouting]
[applause]
Those that oppress us
had the nerve to try and advise us
on how we ought to try to get free from them.
[laughing]
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: We are intelligent enough
not to let you tell us
what tactics that you are comfortable with
to hold us in slavery.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: You don't have none of us under control.
[cheers and applause]
And you will never have us under control again.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: That was Howard Beach.
It felt like a victory,
but you knew that you won a case,
not changed the system.
I'd been in the movement since 12,
and I knew the difference between moments
and movements that won.
So it was a good momentary victory.
[cheers and applause]
But I knew there was no structural change
in the criminal justice system.
If you had some advice for young people,
what would you tell 'em?
Well, first thing I'd say, get yourself together,
because before you can get anything else together,
you gotta get me, I, yourself.
Hey, that's very short, but it's very direct.
We have a young man in the studio
who I think is an astounding young brother
because of his youth, he's only 19 years old,
and he's accomplished a lot.
And he's here to make a presentation to James Brown.
And we'd like to welcome him warmly.
His name is Al Sharpton. How about it for Al Sharpton?
[applause]
Al is the national director of...
-The National-- -The National Youth--
-Movement. -Movement, Incorporated.
-Right, Al? -That's right.
And what do we have here?
Well, we come to break tradition.
We know that in the recording industry
that they give a gold record
to those that achieve a million seller.
But we view your million seller, Payback,
as a Black record, because it is relevant and says
many of the things that young Blacks have tried to say
and could not musically express in our own little way.
And we feel The Payback is sort of the like the theme song
of young Black America in 1974.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: James Brown was the biggest,
most regarded, legendary Black star in the world at that time.
And this was at one of the lowest points in my life.
-Where were you born? -Brooklyn, New York.
[Charlie Rose]: Yeah, your dad left you--
When I was 10 years old.
[Rose]: And how does that shape you?
How have you lived with that?
Well, it is certainly something
that makes you reach outside of your home for male figures.
[Sharpton] I woke up one morning. My father had left.
He had left with my stepsister, and they had a child.
It impacted me more than I would admit to myself.
When my daddy left,
my mother became mother and father.
Sixty percent of young African children grow up
with just their momma at home.
Hello, Rev. This is your mother.
And I think so very much every time I hear you speak,
every time I see you perform,
every time I see your lovely work--
I just think about how good God has been to me
now and through the years that I delivered you
for these, our people.
[Sharpton]: I was looking for a father figure.
The wisdom of my mother was she understood
that if she didn't guide me around the right male figures,
that I was, because of this hunger,
would seek them out, and it might be negative male figures.
-Where did you grow up? -[Sharpton]: In Brownsville,
which is probably the worst part in the city.
Mike Tyson came out of there. And you know, I'm 37 now.
Most--I can't think of two friends
that are not either in jail or dead.
[Sharpton] So when she brought me to Bishop Washington,
and he brought me to a Reverend Jones
and a Jesse Jackson,
that was because she was smart enough to say,
"He's gonna need that in his life."
My Father's Day is about those that have fathered our community.
[audience affirming]
[Woman]: That's right!
Those that pay the extra price.
Those that have done what needed to be done,
even when others were not willing to do it.
I always gave her credit,
that this uneducated Black woman from Alabama,
never studied child-rearing, never studied psychology,
but she knew that.
We got too many young people in America
who do not have two parents to look up to,
and there's only so many hours--
And that problem is compounded by a young mother
who is now being unemployed,
whose job's been given to international markets,
who has no daycare help,
who has no type of assistance
from the federal government.
So he has no role model.
His mother can't take care of him.
He's thrown in the streets with no educational program.
He watches television that gives him a digest of violence.
And then he's incarcerated when he takes TV's advice
and picks up a gun and plays Have Gun - Will Travel.
Probably if he had not left and they had stayed together,
I would have been a much different person,
'cause I probably would've never known
the difference of zip codes.
I would've never saw the father figure in Adam Powell,
or Jesse Jackson, or James Brown.
[chatter]
[Sharpton]: And I understood what a lot of people
didn't get to understand.
I knew both sides of the Black experience.
There's one thing about you is
I know as long as you're involved, I'm involved.
I'm committed to you 'cause I know
you're trying to do something. -Thank you, sir.
I sure thank ya.
[Sharpton]: I learned from James Brown
that if you really find your rhythm
and find what you believe in and what you do,
that sooner or later, the world will cross over to you
rather than you cross over to them.
[siren wailing]
[phone ringing]
[ mournful vocalizing ]
People have called for charges to be laid,
but this crowd is wondering what does it take?
Back before there were video, they could understand that.
Now they can't.
People are calling it a lynching.
[Anchor]: Frustration over the lack of charges
against the officers turned into anger overnight,
and it all comes as Minnesota and the rest of the country
are facing the dual toll of rising jobless claims
and cases of coronavirus.
All you need is probable cause to make an arrest.
And there is no reason why these four policemen
should not have been arrested by now.
[Female anchor]: Protests breaking out in at least
140 cities across the country.
[Reporter]: The nation erupted into scenes of chaos,
violence.
There are people here who are really, really angry
about the systemic issues that they're talking about.
As part of Minneapolis burned last night,
one of President Trump's tweets, quote,
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts."
These criminal acts are not protest.
They are not statements.
Does this violence help?
It doesn't help anything,
but it lets you know that they're tired!
They're tired of being oppressed, being misused,
being abused, being murdered at will!
What do you mean by "Justice should be served"?
I'll leave that to the justice system to work out.
There's this tinge a horrific irony,
to hear calls for tranquility and status quo
when justice has still not been delivered.
I'm not gonna pretend for a millisecond
to know what it's like to be a Black person in America.
I don't.
But the only thing I do know is that we all need to do better.
We need to love more.
We need to respect more. Do better.
So part of what we have to do
is try to understand the context.
[Tucker Carlson]: Oh, the context.
And squint your eyes as you said. "The context." Of course!
There's a context to setting fire to McDonald's,
says Professor Gloud.
I think that this could be a tipping point
to have this conversation.
But you cannot have a conversation
until these officers are arrested
and show that we are dealing on a playing field
that is even and that is fair to everyone.
Without that, it's talk with no action.
We don't just need a conversation.
We need the implementation and execution of the law.
[Man] Solidarity and respect.
All right, thanks.
[Sharpton]: Tyler's giving us the planes,
and Robert Smith is doing the funerals and hotels.
So whatever rooms you get, Robert is gonna pay for.
He told me to lay it out and he would reimburse me.
So put the credit card up there. We'll pay for 'em.
All right, anything come up, let me know.
Where am I going?
[Woman]: If the question comes from the media about looting,
we wanted to pass to you first to set the tone.
I wanna say I'm sorry that it's taken this long
to pass these bills.
These are bills that should've passed long ago.
And I wanna acknowledge the fact that it should not take
a murder of a Black man in Minneapolis to pass these bills.
These bills should've passed
after Eric Garner was murdered in New York City.
[Gwen C a rr]: We want a federal law.
And any time anyone uses a chokehold,
they are immediately,
immediately locked up and charged.
[applause]
Don't wait five years like mine.
My case drug on for five years.
And after five years, the DOJ dropped the ball
and said that they weren't going forward.
You may not be going forward, but I am.
[applause]
To those that are doing violent things,
don't use George Floyd and Eric Garner as props.
If you are one that is a looter,
don't act like you are an activist.
Because a activist goes for causes and justice,
not for designer shoes.
[applause]
[phone ringing]
Senator Schumer, it was the outrage of the day
to call for militarization.
You can't say the week with this president
'cause he does at least one a day.
I'm doing the eulogy at the funeral,
the first memorial service on Thursday,
and then the one on Saturday, and the one on Tuesday.
And I would hope that we could let this family know
that we are gonna see legislative change.
It's not enough just to keep showing the activist part
if the legislative part is not there.
What made the 60s significant
is with all the marching, and the drama, and the rallies,
we got the Civil Rights Act of '64,
the Voting Rights Act of '65, open housing of '68.
We have not had the legislative response
to the litany of cases of policing
all the way from Rodney King to now.
It's time to be able to translate that
into legislation, not just conversation.
[Schumer]: I'm gonna send everybody a speech I just gave
on the floor of the Senate,
where I was really strong against the president.
[Skype jingle]
[phone ringing]
Hello?
[Derrick Johnson]: Hey, Rev, how you doin'?
Hey, how you feelin'?
[Johnson]: I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
I wanna start by saying that the way you maneuver, man,
I'm loving it. I've watched it, I'm learning.
Uh, I need to get some lessons 'cause you--you damn good.
Well, coming from the president of the NAACP,
I take it as a compliment, Derrick.
Well, America, we are about to open the door
on our beloved city called New York.
Mr. Sharpton was one of several arrested
in a blocking of the Brooklyn Bridge at rush hour,
not to mention a couple of subway trains here.
[some applause]
For which he gets an applause
which does about a two and a half
on the old popularity meter.
So we do 8 minutes...
and 34 seconds during the funeral.
[Johnson]: 46 seconds.
No, well, I don't know. You tell me.
Right before, right after?
Hold one minute, hold one minute.
Hello?
[Jesse Jackson]: Hey Al.
Hey, Reverend, how are you doing?
Hold one minute, hold one minute.
Yeah, that's Jesse on the other line.
Let's get this straight.
New York now has visible, politically active Black people
who are not only speaking, they are actually causing,
on some--few occasions, purposely,
disruption of our city's life not unlike the disruption,
or peaceful demonstrations,
that were led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
[Johnson]: What's the call to action out of it?
We're talking about calling for big march and rally
on August 28, the anniversary of the March on Washington,
as I jump off for voting registration nationwide.
We talking about 200-300,000 people in Washington.
[Johnson]: Yeah, no, this is your space,
this is your space.
It should surprise no one that Mr. Maddox, Mr. Sharpton have,
at various times, been called hot dogs.
You're out for your own publicity,
and you're just causing a lot of trouble,
and you're overdoing this race thing.
After all, we're all God's children.
Let's hold hands and move on into the future.
Well, I think--
I think the charge of hot dogs could be really put to rest.
If these cases did not exist,
there would be no reason for us to come to anybody.
The media catches us in motion. They don't start the motion.
And we've been marching long before the media covered us.
[applause]
[Sharpton]: In the '70s and '80s,
you had the racy kind of show.
[jeering]
The Donahues, Richard Bey, Morton Downey.
[jeering]
Now please zip it.
We're gonna let everyone talk tonight.
And that's what the loudmouths are for.
Let these guys talk first.
You can't debate first before I give it.
[Richard Bey]: Well, it's not an answer, it's a story.
Go on and tell me.
[Sharpton]: No, it is an answer.
What's the difference between a "fag" and "nigger"?
You wouldn't sit still for the word "nigger".
And sometimes we had to go on the racy kind of shows.
No, I won't apologize.
In the manner in which I use it, I do not apologize.
[cheering]
You just applauded a white for refusing to apologize
for using the word "nigger".
Do you realize what that does for America?
[Sharpton]: The polished shows wouldn't have us on
'cause they didn't wanna talk about race,
and they certainly didn't want to talk about it to people.
that were going to tell them the truth.
This business of racism is not new, and it's systemic.
You have to know that. You have to know that
you're even unaware that you're a racist.
They would have these guys that will hoot and howl at you
in the studio audience.
And I am sick of you people promoting racism
on its highest level,
and that's exactly what you're doing.
[applause]
So it was that kind of almost confrontational television.
You weren't here to help build up America, most of you.
Your grandparents were, right along with me.
And you wouldn't know what it is to be Black.
That's why you can sit up and say what you're saying.
You don't know what it is, and you may never know,
because you're not Black.
[Sharpton]: We went through everywhere else.
Richard Bey was all available.
And the question is, you do that, or you do nothing.
We're not asking you to like us.
We're saying that we should be protected under the law.
Whatever America is, white folks created it.
We did not.
It's a combination of things that created racism.
[Donahue]: Like what?
Well, okay, you have, as you said,
the whites created the world--
or created America, I agree with you.
[shouting]
Wait a minute, can I make my point?
Can I make my point?
I am feeling for you. I am very empathetic.
But then you had the buttoned down more sophisticated network types
that talked very measured.
It seems to me that part of what you two gentlemen
are trying to do is perhaps
to change the legal system in the street.
We're trying to establish the fact
that there is a prevalent racial--
[Ted Koppel]: My question was, whether you're trying
to change the legal system in the streets.
[overlapping voices]
I'm trying to answer you.
[Sharpton]: But had the same basic
exclusion of Black thought,
the distorted depiction of race.
They just did it in a more polished way.
[Bey]: This morning's newspapers,
"Sharpton 'The Informer' is as an entertaining racist
"playing the race game for fun and profit,
"the way generations of white Southern racists played it."
There was a joke going around
that was in the Wall Street Journal,
repeated in Esquire magazine.
What do you do if you have Saddam Hussein,
Muammar Qaddafi, and Al Sharpton,
and in your hand is a gun with two bullets?
The answer is you shoot Al Sharpton twice.
[Sharpton]: So if you go back to the '80s and '90s in New York,
and you go to the editorial room that decided the news,
they were all white.
Why would they help a Black movement
that they know would come to get them for racial exclusion?
The media is really manipulating people
to feel and think a certain way.
Nobody's controlling me.
Nobody comes down here and says--
-[Sharpton]: Come on, Richard. -[Mason]: You need to wake up.
You mean you're doing this on your own?
That's right!
Okay, all right.
[Sharpton]: The way you discredit a movement
is you discredit those that are in front of the movement.
Former president Truman was quoted by the AP
as saying that the march from Selma was "silly."
The march was not silly at all.
[Sharpton]: Martin Luther King, Jr.
National holiday in his honor.
You read books on Martin Luther King.
Isn't it interesting they never say he was indicted
for income tax fraud and misappropriation of funds?
They don't want you to remember the first thing they did
was try to make him a crook.
He had to go on trial and get acquitted.
Adam Clayton Powell, indicted for income tax evasion.
The gentleman's question was
that if the case goes against me,
could it be used against me politically?
You answer him, please?
No!
Marcus Gravey ran out the country for a fraud.
So either all Black leaders are crooks,
or there's the playbook to discredit us.
Sharpton is back in the news, arrested for grand larceny.
[Reporter]: Sharpton appeared in
Manhattan Criminal Court,
and with lawyer Alton Maddox at his side,
heard the charges against him.
It's my induction into the Activist Hall of Fame.
There was too much evidence that they knew better
than what they were projecting.
They knew that I started in Breadbasket.
They did articles on me.
Cut that part out that
that he grew up in the King movement in the north.
We will not sit by and watch them shoot 14-year-old boys
in the streets any longer.
Start him mid '80s.
[Reporter]: Who is this 33-year-old preacher
without a church?
[Sharpton]: They had to redo me.
This is just a guy conning.
You know, he was in show business with James Brown.
This is just performance.
At first, I resented it. But then I came to understand
that the people writing the stories
was part of the institutionalized bias
I was fighting.
[Male anchor]: To most white New Yorkers
and a sizeable number of Black New Yorkers as well,
he is little more than a pudgy exhibitionist
who can be counted on to show up, bullhorn in hand,
at every racial incident.
So who is Al Sharpton anyway?
[Sharpton] The objective was to stop
raising the issue of race
because they were guilty.
They had made a intentional decision
to protect the status quo,
'cause the status quo was protecting them.
[chanting] Stop the rape! Stop the lies!
Women of color on the rise!
Stop your rape!
Stop your lies!
Women of color on the rise!
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm really glad to be here.
I'm here because, like all of you, I'm pissed off
and I'm mad as hell at what's happening to our people,
to our women, and to our leaders.
So this is in support of our Black sister,
Tawana Brawley.
[cheers and applause]
[applause]
They're gonna continue taking advantage of her
'cause she's Black.
Since the people are white,
they're dealing with the political campaigning,
they're gonna pay the white judge,
and the white judge is gonna throw the case out.
But as long as we're here to fight for her,
it will not be thrown out.
[Reporter]: Last November, Tawana Brawley
was found dumped along a road in Dutchess County.
She was wrapped in a feces-covered plastic bag.
Racial slurs were scrawled on her body.
Her family claims that she was abducted by six white men
and sexually abused for four days.
One of the men purportedly claimed to be
a law enforcement officer.
It was a cop.
[Reporter]: He was a police officer?
Showed me his badge.
[Sharpton]: My position on the Brawley case,
which was always distorted,
was that this is a young lady who made an accusation.
So she deserved a day in court.
And we promise this family
that we'll fight until hell freezes over.
to get a special prosecutor to go into the courtroom
and bring justice to Tawana Brawley.
The case is plain. We need a special prosecutor.
And that the attorney general is
is the appropriate person to appoint.
Tawana, I know you have gone through a traumatic experience.
I and my colleagues are here to help you.
[Sharpton]: The had the state attorney general
become the prosecutor, who I felt was playing politics.
And at the same time,
he announced he was going to investigate
the funds of National Youth Movement.
So I knew that playbook.
Like they went at Dr. King's charity.
Mr. Abrams says he has leads.
He's made no arrest.
He's acting as if only Tawana Brawley
can give him the evidence he needs for an arrest.
[Reporter]: The family refuses to cooperate,
saying the authorities are only interested in a cover-up.
I will not give in to requests for a new prosecutor
because somebody's unhappy with Abrams.
He's the best, as far as I'm concerned, and that's that.
You can scream, shout, protest, lay on the railroad tracks,
it won't make any difference.
The story and the controversy surrounding Tawana Brawley
gets more and more curious.
There was a television report last night that she's lying.
[Sharpton]: It's easy to play back,
oh, Brawley was this or that,
but nobody ever stops to say, well, first of all,
if two prominent attorneys told the story,
mother backed it up,
and the guy prosecuting the case
is a guy that also is after Sharpton,
why wouldn't Sharpton believe her and not believe him?
Oh, I got it.
All young Black girls lie.
Just make it up.
Tawana Brawley's kidnapping and rape case
has been mysterious from the start.
Just like Michael Griffith and them.
They said they was lying.
Television station reported witnesses
had placed the Black teenager at a party
and accompanied reputed drug dealers
at the time she said she was kidnapped.
There has been a continuing journalistic rape
of Tawana Brawley by the establishment media.
The Brawley case has been marked by
one strange twist after another.
The continuing theatrics often overshadowed
the alleged crime itself.
[Reporter]: Sharpton dropped
another questionable bombshell.
The Reverend Al Sharpton charged
that a group linked to the Irish Republican Army is involved.
It's almost as if the lawyers themselves
are saying the facts in this case don't matter that much,
because the general proposition is true,
that there's institutionalized racism
in the criminal justice system.
Every time we seem to be getting closer to the answers
in the Tawana Brawley case, there are a lot more questions.
The question of did I believe Brawley
is like asking me do I believe Michael Griffith
was breaking in the house that night in Howard Beach.
I didn't go do an investigation on either one of them.
There's enough prima facie evidence
to go to court on this.
And that-- guess what?--
is what all cases in this country go by.
Why is it different for us?
My daughter was attacked by some white officials.
I have named them. She has named them.
Why don't you get your people there to pick them up?
[Mario Cuomo]: Tawana Brawley I see as my daughter.
We want a chance to prove that she will be protected.
And we will all be protected
in the protecting of Tawana Brawley.
To do that, she has to cooperate with us.
The Brawley case was sandwiched between Howard Beach
and Central Park 5,
and we were fighting all of them.
More than 30 boys in New York City went wilding last week,
and now eight of them are in jail,
charged with several attacks,
including an especially brutal one on a young woman.
[Sharpton]: No victim identified the five boys at Central Park.
And Brawley, she made identification.
We are not going to let this girl
be the scapegoat of a corrupt system!
Mason and Maddox have obligations
as officers of the court,
as well as attorneys to Tawana Brawley.
They have an obligation to the system.
They are representing their own interests.
They obviously have a political agenda.
If he serves a subpoena on Tawana Brawley
or any member of her family,
we are prepared to be present
to block the serving of that subpoena.
They will not appear in front of a grand jury.
And we're prepared to do what is necessary,
including going to jail.
As we did with the original subpoena,
I ask that Bob Abrams, that he take his subpoenas,
he can do what he wants.
They will have to arrest us first.
We had just won a victory in Howard Beach.
Had we met at a phone booth at 125th Street and said,
"Let's go upstate and create a hoax."
I mean, why would we do that?
That doesn't even make sense!
The only reason we would do it is we believed.
[indistinct chatter]
You don't want to hear what Tawana has to say!
You wanna get this behind you
so you can go on with racist business as usual.
You've got enough behind you now.
You done got too much behind you now.
And our cups are filled to the brim.
Racism has run over in this state.
We will not allow any more of our blood in New York State
to go unresponded to.
We're tired of burying folks.
We're tired of mothers who we can't explain
why this is happening to them.
And you sit up there and bring a subpoena
on the mother of a raped daughter.
And you expect for us to sit around
and talk about how we're gonna comply?
[Man]: Right on.
We cannot honor something that is dishonorable.
That's where we stand today.
We're not entertaining any questions.
Thank you.
[camera shutters click]
-[Sharpton]: No justice! -[Audience]: No Peace!
-No justice! -[Audience]: No peace!
Why is Glenda so important to us this week?
Look at the history of the State of New York.
No white man has ever been convicted
of raping a Black woman in the history of the state.
They keep talking every night on the news,
[imitates news anchor] "It's been six months!
"They're still angry!
[laughing and applause]
"Can you believe it?
"The negroes are still with Tawana."
They will say that we are exasperating racial tensions.
But the people know the truth.
The people know that we've taken more
than we should've ever taken.
We should've stopped you with Michael Stewart.
We should've stopped you with Eleanor Bumpurs.
We should've stopped you with Randy Evans.
We should've stopped you with Michael Griffith.
And we're gonna stop you with Tawana Brawley!
"Sorry, Reverend, are you talking violence?"
I'm talking what is necessary.
When it was necessary, God got violent.
Say that God got mad one day and drowned the whole world.
Yeah, y'all say we're crazy?
You've driven us crazy!
[applause]
400 years of abuse.
Let me tell you something, Mario.
We are not scared of you.
You think 'cause you're Italian and know some boys
somebody's scared of you?
We are the descendants of Hannibal
that walked all over Italy!
[enthusiastic cheers and applause]
You will pay from now on
for everything you do to our people.
If we've got to take justice in our hands, we will do that.
The Bible said there's a time for everything under the sun.
Time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.
Time of war and a time of peace.
It's going to be a day in history
if you missed the Selma to Montgomery march,
if you missed the March on Washington,
if you missed Marcus Garvey organizing an army
coming down 125th Street,
don't miss Monday.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: There's many moments
that people would come in
and have righteous anger and want to fight back.
And we had to develop ways that we would put our
security teams out there and marshals to keep people cool.
I don't care if you're left wing, right wing,
dropped both wings.
Whoever you are, you're gonna listen to security.
There's many times I got angry and would want to rhetorically--
I've never been violent, but I'd get in exchanges.
And you had to learn how to fine tune it as you went.
If you cannot listen to security, don't go.
If you go and get out there and start cutting up,
we're gonna take you behind in the bus
and break both your legs.
You've gotta be able to raise the theater level
to where you don't lose control, you don't have violence.
But it is dramatic enough that you can't be ignored, either.
[contemplative music]
[low chatter]
This is one of those moments
that transcends the category of the ordinary.
[laughing]
You know there are two great words
in the Greek language for time.
And one of things I like about the Greek language is that it
has a greater capacity for lifting up nuances
and shades of meaning.
Two great words in the Greek language for time,
one is "kairos," and the other is "chronos."
Now, you're probably familiar with "chronos."
That's the word...
That's the root word for "chronometer."
Chronos has to do with clock time.
Right now, according to chronos,
it is 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
[laughing]
But there's another kind of time that is referred to in the Greek
by the word kairos, and that's God time.
[somber music]
[Jones]: And every now and then,
God time breaks in on clock time.
-[Man]: Say his name! -[Crowd]: George Floyd!
[Jones]: The infinite intersects the finite.
And you get caught up in the transcendent experience.
[camera shutters clicking]
[Sharpton]: This young lady, if she had not shot that video,
the world would've never know what happened to George.
And I want her mother to know we gonna look out for her.
We'll talk about that in private.
My daughter was--she was on her way to a bonfire,
like in the opposite direction.
And she saw what was happening, it wasn't right.
So she pulled out her phone.
[somber music]
[camera shutters clicking]
I want us to not sit here
and act like we had
a funeral on the schedule.
[Woman]: That's right, that's right.
[Man]: Right.
George Floyd should not be
among the deceased.
[mourners affirming]
[Sharpton]: He did not die of common health conditions.
He died of a common American criminal justice malfunction.
[mourners affirming, clapping]
[Sharpton]: One of the things, Martin,
that I've always had to deal with,
as critics would say,
"All Al Sharpton wants is publicity."
Well, that's exactly what I want.
'Cause nobody calls me to keep a secret.
[applause]
People call me to blow up issues
that nobody else would deal with,
'cause I'm the blow up man, and I don't apologize for that.
[applause]
[Sharpton]: George Floyd's story
has been the story of Black folks,
because ever since 401 years ago,
the reason we could never be
who we wanted and dreamed of being
is you kept your knee on our neck.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: What happened to Floyd happens every day
in this country in education, in health services,
and in every area of American life.
It's time for us to stand up in George's name
and say, get your knee off our necks!
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: We don't want no favors!
Just get up off of us!
And we can be and do whatever we can be.
[enthusiastic cheers and applause]
[string music]
[Sharpton]: As a minister, I have to look at the providence
of in the middle of a nation lockdown,
George Floyd happens, Breonna Taylor happens,
Ahmaud Arbery happens,
all within the same span of time.
And all while everybody was locked down
and had to watch the news over and over and over again.
And it's our job to come out this other side of this pandemic
different than when we went in.
But I'm more hopeful today than ever.
Why? Well, let me go back.
Reverend Jackson always taught me, stay on your text.
Go back to my text, Ecclesiastes.
There is a time and a season.
And when I looked this time
and saw marches where in some cases,
young whites outnumbered the Blacks marching,
I know that it's a different time and a different season.
When I looked and saw people in Germany
marching for George Floyd,
it's a different time and a different season.
When they went in front of the parliament in London, England,
and said it's a different time and a different season,
we need to go back to Washington
and stand up in the shadows of Lincoln and tell them,
this is the time of dealing with accountability
in the criminal justice system.
[applause]
[Woman]: I'd like to ask Reverend Al Sharpton,
what is the purpose of a family advisor
compared to a lawyer?
The lawyer is handling the legal part of the case.
I am advising them as a minister and as a community activist,
as we feel that has racial overtones--
[Bey]: But it's not your community, is it?
Well, what is my community?
[Bey]: You tell me.
Martin Luther King marched all over the country.
Wasn't his community.
I mean, I mean, what kind of question is that?
[Bey]: Well, is that what you are?
You're now a national Black leader?
Is that what you are?
[Sharpton]: No, I am a family advisor.
I mean, which question do you want me to answer?
I am an activist fighting injustice where I find it.
[Bey]: You're Superman. You go all over the world or--
[Sharpton]: I've seen other people on your show, Richard,
like, uh...that have been active,
and they weren't asked that.
I mean, no one asks Curtis Sliwa
why does he have Guardian Angels everywhere
when he lives in one community?
I mean, that's ridiculous!
[Bey]: But there's some people that think
that you'll just look at a case
that you think might be controversial,
you'll look at a case that might be able to get headlines.
You might be able to make something out of a case
to make a name for yourself.
We were all involved in the Howard Beach case.
And Reverend Sharpton-- I did not know this.
Ms. Griffith told me this about November of '77.
This was some nearly 11 months after her son had been killed.
She indicated to me that there was one man who had,
on a daily basis, called her, or come to see her,
or asked her if she needed something.
And this didn't ever get in the headlines.
This person never called any press conferences
when he made those contacts with that family.
That person was Reverend Al Sharpton.
The reality of it is, is that there's a lot of things
that Reverend Sharpton do for a lot of victims
that people never knew about.
He counseled the Griffith family.
He counseled other victims.
And he's doing a great job with respect to the Brawley family.
[indistinct chatter]
[scattered chanting]
Back up, back up.
-[Man]: What do we need? -[Crowd]: A Black army!
[Sharpton]: Ms. Brawley will not attend this hearing
unless the members of the community
are allowed to go in with her.
[Man]: Right, right.
[Sharpton]: We have the right to a public hearing.
We will not allow Glenda to be disenfranchised.
We have come prepared to give our show cause.
We will do it at a public hearing.
We will not do it in a private setting.
So we will stand here.
If the lawyers cannot open the courtroom,
we will be leaving and holding this court in contempt.
You sure you don't want to bring your client up here?
Judge, my client already knew the outcome of this.
She had no confidence in the judicial system here.
Black people in this state have no confidence.
[Judge]: Is that their defense?
--to the judiciary.
[Judge]: Let me ask you, Mr. Maddox.
And I'm pretty sure Mr. Abrams will ask for his 30 days.
That's the maximum allowed by law--
[Judge]: Mister--Mr. Maddox.
--right now, we can all leave.
[Judge]: Mr. Maddox, is it your defense--
[Maddox]: I have no defense.
Is it the defense in this case
that Black people cannot receive justice?
[Maddox]: Yes.
That's your defense to this motion to--
[Maddox]: Yes, absolutely.
Do you wish to be heard?
[Mason]: He agrees with us.
[Maddox]: He agrees with it.
-[Judge]: Pardon me? -[Maddox]: He agrees with it.
[Judge]: Agrees with that statement?
-I doubt that. -[Maddox]: I'm hoping he does.
[Judge]: Who made the statement?
Mr. Ryan, do you agree that Black people
can't receive justice in this state?
No, I do not.
[Judge]: The moving papers before me
have raised no factual issue.
All that the defense has raised have been political in nature,
and might very well be raised in another form and not here.
Glenda Brawley's in criminal contempt of this court
and is sentenced and committed to the county jail
for a period of 30 days.
We will be seeking religious asylum for her.
We challenge Bob Abrams to come into the church
and do what he's got to do.
We're going to force you to show the world how beastly you are.
-Hi, Bob. -Hi, hi, hi.
The advisors of Ms. Brawley have apparently set up
a staged circumstance today,
and I've advised the sheriff not to bite at their bait.
A media circus has been staged.
[shouting]
No justice, no peace!
-When do we want it? -[Crowd]: Now!
-What do you want? -[Crowd]: Justice!
-When do you want it? -[Crowd]: Now!
[applause]
[Man]: WLIB Radio in New York City.
It's Monday, June 27, 1988.
Good morning and greetings to the WLIB family.
Anyone that understands the history of our people
understand that any time you start shaking
the root of this system, then you're gonna have
a discredit campaign. And what we've seen is that.
This is the largest crowd
that we have ever had at Bethany.
Give yourselves applause.
[applause]
[Maddox]: Every time that there's a report,
it attracts a large white audience.
It's like seeing a lynching, you know?
"I'm getting ready to see these Black men lynched.
This is something I want to do. I have a thirst for this."
And TV is satisfying that thirst.
Wait, wait, wait.
Everybody that is on this list
has signed in from a news media station
that thinks that they can attack us
and we cannot answer them by name have walked out.
I'll turn this over to the army.
They will never be allowed
in a press conference or rally of ours.
[cheers and applause]
The very strident, militant, confrontational policy
that you've taken in terms of dealing with the justice system,
uh, and the fact that there has been, what?
At least four incidents of racist violence
in this town over the last four or five days
are somehow linked.
There are people in this town, of color,
who are more concerned about white feelings
than they are about Black lives, you see?
And so they should be happy that all we're doing
is to insist and demand justice.
[Maddox]: The one thing that the white man has always done
and the one thing that he will never change,
he will always give you a signal
as to who he fears and who you should follow.
But there are some of us who watch out for his signals.
We ignore what he says,
because the Native American told us many years ago
that the white man speaks with a forked tongue.
[applause]
If we did not have radio station WLIB--
-[DJ]: That's right. -Where would we go?
People are gonna say, "Well, you're talking about separatism."
I don't care what they call it, see?
White folks are crazy.
We know what the white man did with the Native American.
Now the white man is calling himself the native American.
White people will rewrite history in your face.
[applause]
[Sharpton]: We're tired of this!
Enough is enough!
Payback has come!
You now have the nerve,
after all we did for you,
to put your wicked hands on our daughter!
You will pay for Tawana Brawley!
[cheers and applause]
[somber music]
[Sharpton]: Later in life, I became more conscious.
I saw Tawana, in many ways,
like the Black mother I had
that was fighting for her kids, or my sister.
I saw in her a Black woman Black men wouldn't stand up for.
And I wasn't gonna be the one to walk away from her,
no matter how hard it got.
I just wasn't gonna do it.
Okay, that's close enough.
That's close enough.
I didn't tell you all to do that.
[cheers and applause]
-No justice! -[Crowd]: No peace!
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: To this day, I don't know all of what happened
with Brawley.
But I know she deserved the right
that everybody else deserved.
[Tawana Brawley]: My name is Tawana Brawley.
I'm not a liar, and I'm not crazy.
I simply just want justice,
and then I want to be left alone.
My family and I saw that we couldn't get any justice.
So we decided not to cooperate.
We had no New York Times to leak to.
[media chatter]
[Reporter]: Tawana, why won't you answer any questions?
[Reporter]: Reverend Sharpton?
After seven months of investigation,
the grand jury found no evidence
that a crime had been committed
against Tawana Brawley.
[Reporter]: Governor, do you have a reaction
to the Brawley grand jury report?
It's not a perfect system, but it's better than any system
anywhere in the world.
Reverend Sharpton was part of the group of three advisors
and the same kinds of adjectives apply to him.
Abominable behavior, deplorable, disgraceful, reprehensible.
[Reporter]: The attorney general says that not only you,
but Mr. Mason and Mr. Maddox,
are under investigation.
What do you think is going to come out of that?
Hardy-ha-ha.
[Reporter]: What do you think is going to come out of it?
Nothing.
I'm saddened and angry that we've come to this point,
where people would use a young woman,
or use anyone in our community for their own ambition.
They have made it less likely that the victims of racial bias
in the criminal justice system will be heard in the future.
They have disserved their cause.
[Sharpton]: I remember I was on a show one night.
And a guy said to me, "You done well.
You're doing all right now.
But I still disagree with you on Brawley."
I said, "What do you disagree with?
That they should've gone to court?"
"Well, I think she lied.
And I think the jury was right."
I said, "Let me ask you a question."
He said, "Yeah?"
I said, "Do you think OJ killed his wife?"
He said, "Absolutely."
I said, "Well, the jury said he didn't."
So I got it. You can question juries.
I should just be a nice boy and shut up.
[indistinct chatter]
[Bailiff]: AR2 is back in session.
[Maddox]: In 1988, we are being told
that every person of African descent
cannot participate in First Amendment rights.
And the responsibility that you have at this moment is
to dismiss each and every one of allegations set forth
in those complaints.
In the event that they are not dismissed,
I have 1,000 people who are ready to go to jail right now.
What you are talking about is putting something down
for a week from now, when people have already been harmed
as a result of this. You can't undo that.
You are sanctioning.
By allowing this to go on for one further minute,
you are sanctioning the misconduct in this order.
[applause]
[Maddox]: Well, there are people
who are prepared to go to jail now.
Revoke this-- no, no, no.
Your Honor, before you do that--
[Maddox]: Yeah, right now.
[Lawyer]: Your Honor.
Your Honor.
[courtroom spectators shouting]
[Sharpton]: We marched peacefully through
these downtown streets.
We didn't break a window glass.
[Woman]: Not one.
We didn't touch a pane.
We didn't close a business.
We didn't touch a pedestrian.
We didn't snatch a pocketbook.
We didn't damage any property.
[shouts and applause]
Now they're telling us that they can delay and adjourn
and pick the date that they will decide on our freedom.
I'm sorry, Officer Gallagher.
But you can't choose the day no more.
We've had all we can take.
You think you're God, and you're not God!
[shouts and applause]
I'm telling you, we're not leaving.
We'll spend this night in jail or in this room.
I'm telling you that you drew the line!
It don't mean nothing! Take God's name off the wall!
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: Jews-- Jews ran through the precinct
and you didn't lock up nobody.
Italians marched, you don't lock up nobody.
And you're gonna tell us, the children of slaves
that built your nasty streets,
that cleaned your nasty behinds,
that we can't walk the streets,
we'll turn this town upside down!
[cheers and applause]
[string music]
[shouting]
All of them jumped on me and started knocking me around.
[screaming, shouting]
[Woman]: Stop it! Stop it!
[somber string music]
[several voices call out: "No justice, no peace!"]
[Sharpton]: Michael Stewart, Barry Allen, Troy Canty,
Darrell Cabey, Daryl Dotson,
Michael Harris, Michael Griffith,
Cedric Sandiford,
Tawana Brawley,
Yusuf Hawkins,
Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana,
Korey Wise, Phillip Pannell,
Mary Mitchell, Rodney King,
Gavin Cato, Ralph Nimmons,
Anthony Baez, Ernest Sayon,
Jay Walker, Jr,
Caroline "Sissy" Adams.
Most of them on that list never made high media.
But they say I only do it for media attention.
And most of them that we got a lot of media attention
didn't get media attention before we came in,
and certainly we prolonged it.
I do this 'cause it's what I do.
The week of our march leading in
is the week of the Republican convention.
So it's gonna be the major event going into the fall.
Marches and protesting is always about timing in history.
You got to know the right time.
Here the challenge comes for the movement.
Say Biden wins.
Does everybody calm down, then?
And you gotta make it above politics.
Trump losing does not assure justice is present.
It is less of an impediment,
but you still gotta put pressure on the system.
[Reporter]: Tulsa, Oklahoma bracing for
a possible political storm tonight.
[Reporter]: The city expects 100,000 people
this weekend for President Trump's campaign rally
and the city's Juneteenth celebration.
[Reporter]: The Reverend Al Sharpton
is expected to speak at the Juneteenth celebration
in Tulsa tonight.
The city's mayor declared a civil emergency...
[Sharpton]: Yeah.
You know how to do Facetime, right?
Okay, yeah, we can do that.
[cheers and applause]
He said that he's done more than any president
for Black people in the US.
What do you think of that?
Are you the opening act? Are you the comedian tonight?
[Sharpton]: Mother Crutcher, how are you doing?
Good to be seen, babe.
Thank you.
I told y'all I'd be here when y'all need me.
[Woman]: Now, you need to move yourself physically to the left
about an inch.
[News anchor]: So of course, Trump is throwing it back
to the bad old days on this Juneteenth
with another George Wallace-style threat
to those who don't support his reelection.
Rev, I wanna start with you.
What do you make of that kind of language
coming out of the president of the United States on Juneteenth?
I think that it is offensive.
I think that it is insulting.
[phone ringing]
Yeah, Mike, Chris did a walkthrough with the police.
Yeah, I'm sorry-- I walked through
with two of the police officers.
And it's a very open field.
There's not a lot of cover-- well you can see everybody.
So it's kind of open.
I don't believe-- It's a security risk.
[Michael Hardy]: So is the concern a shooter?
I mean, it's--it's--
[Hardy]: Do you have a recommendation, Chris?
Honestly...Rev shouldn't...
really shouldn't do this.
I don't believe it's feasible with the climate,
with the reports that we're getting
even from the officers of
the amount of people that are out there.
I mean, I think, Hardy, the best thing you can do
is let them secure as much as they can.
I'm going to do it. I don't, you know...
We get threats all the time.
[Hardy]: Right.
I'm not going to not do the rally.
[Woman]: The Reverend Al Sharpton,
President of the National Action Network!
Give it up Tulsa!
[cheers and applause]
I love you. I love you so much.
I love you.
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
[chants of "Yusuf!"]
[Cameraman]: Coming in, coming in, coming in.
Sorry, baby.
[Reporter]: The killing of 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins
has had a chilling effect on race relations in New York.
Hawkins was shot dead after a confrontation
with a gang of whites in an Italian-American neighborhood.
The peace seems to be getting harder and harder to keep.
[shouting]
[Man]: Hey, we want Al Sharpton out here!
White power!
Kill 'em mother fucker, we kill 'em!
This is all the media's fault!
The media should not publicize this kind of crap
because they're all wanting wars to start in another place.
These things should be kept quiet.
Al Sharpton, go home!
[Cameraman]: New tape, new tape.
Tape man.
[tape static]
[Man]: Where's Al Sharpton?
[Man]: Bullshit and lies!
[shouting]
[Woman]: Get an ambulance!
[Sharpton]: Until you face what could be the end,
you guess what you would do if you looked death in the face.
But it's different when you think you're looking death
in the face, and death is saying to you,
"Now what you gonna do?"
[Female anchor]: The controversial activist
Al Sharpton is in the hospital tonight
with a stab wound to the chest.
Police say a white man from the Bensonhurst area
attacked Sharpton as he prepared to lead a march
in that community.
They rushed him here to Coney Island Hospital,
where doctors treated him for a wound in the upper chest,
just below the collarbone.
The weapon? A 5-inch kitchen knife.
[Sharpton]: It changed me in two ways.
One way, it made me know
that I really was not gonna stop no matter what they did.
[Reporter]: How do you feel about the attack
and the guy who came out of the crowd and attacked you?
Well, I think that he is the personification
of a lot of hate,
and I don't have ill feelings toward him.
I would much rather concentrate on the justice system.
[Sharpton]: Second thing, if I am going to die for this,
I want to change to society.
That means you've got to change laws.
[Reporter]: Mr. Mason and Mr. Maddox,
there seems to be some divisiveness.
Are you calling for calm?
Are you supporting the march today?
Oh, I'm absolutely calling for calm.
Maddox was always more in the nationalist, Malcolm tradition.
[applause]
[Sharpton]: They made a decision,
them three or four days I was in the hospital,
that they were not gonna let whites
attend the rallies anymore like Slave Theater.
That's when I left.
Maddox understood I was going another way.
We just saw our roles and our traditions differently.
Vernon Mason went to Harlem went me
and helped me start National Action Network,
an organization on the principles
of Martin Luther King.
We must not reduce ourselves to, "If you don't do it my way,
"you ain't right.
"If you ain't out here with me, you ain't right."
Because all of us don't need to be outside.
Somebody better be inside helping us outside,
or we gonna be outside forever.
[Sharpton]: Mrs. Coretta Scott King,
Martin Luther King's widow, was the one that challenged me.
She says, "Al, let me ask you,
why did you say 'so-and-so' in this occasion?"
I will never bow down to one of these chicken shit negroes
that y'all have elected to one of these offices,
that have done nothing
but kiss crackers' behinds all their life!
[applause]
[Sharpton]: And I'm trying to explain and justify--
I mean, it was almost like I'm in a court
being a defense attorney.
And I'm half shocked that Mrs. Coretta Scott King
knows about all this stuff I did and said.
And then she says,
"Al, you realize that words have power?"
So as we rebuild the family,
know that what you put in Black children
is what will grow in them.
[Sharpton]: "So you oughta be careful with that."
She says, "You can either go for the crown
"that we talk about in Christianity,
"or you can go for the crowd.
You gotta choose."
[Sharpton]: This is your life.
It's like a blank piece of paper.
You can write on it what you want,
or the world will write on it for you.
You should write for yourself the things that are positive
and powerful for you.
You don't give people room to misinterpret,
because the cause is the bigger than the applause you get.
The Reverend Al Sharpton says
he'll run for the US Senate seat.
We must be concerned about the agenda
that empowers our community.
[Sharpton]: And I had to learn to discipline myself.
[Reporter]: Amadou Diallo was shot by four police officers
who fired 41 shots at him.
[shouts of "Amadou!"]
[Sharpton]: This is not the end.
This is the beginning.
We intend to nationalize this fight.
I became more defined as in the lane that I was born in.
It was not I had changed.
I had returned, and that's who I was.
We are angry, but we are bright enough and intelligent enough
to channel our anger to get results!
[Reporter]: The Reverend Al Sharpton and others today
found justice not outside of the system, but through it.
[Woman]: Please welcome
Democratic presidential candidate
Reverend Al Sharpton!
[applause]
[Sharpton]: There's a difference between
making news and making history.
I think you gotta go beyond your comfort zone.
A civil rights activist who now hosts his own program on MSNBC--
Welcome to PoliticsNation. I'm Al Sharpton.
In the '50s, it was Emmitt Till.
Now it is Trayvon Martin.
This boy should be alive today!
The work we've done with
the Taskforce for 21st Century Policing,
that at times you've participated in,
terrific recommendations.
Appreciate you, sir. Thank you.
And Mrs. King was a large part of that.
[Reporter]: Developing now,
crowds are gathering in the nation's capital
for a rally called The Commitment March--
Get Your Knee Off Our Necks.
It also marks the 57th anniversary
of the March on Washington,
one of the most important civil rights demonstrations
in our nation's history.
Joining us now, the organizer of today's march on Washington,
my dear friend, the Reverend Al Sharpton.
He is the President of the National Action Network.
He also hosts MSNBC's PoliticsNation.
I understand the anger,
but your anger should be directed in a way
that you're going to deal with what you're angry about.
You cannot let your anger make you like what you're fighting.
Nobody's more angry than me.
I've been fighting these issues for decades.
But am I angry enough to channel my anger
toward what I'm angry about?
Or, am I gonna start being like what I'm angry about,
reckless and violent?
[indistinct chatter]
97.6--you are good to go!
-Thank you. -Of course.
-How are you doin', boss? -Good, how are you?
[Yamiche Alcindor]: Yesterday was crazy.
I was at that gathering at the White House,
hoping that none of those germs will kill us all.
You see how careful we're trying to be.
It's crazy.
[Alcindor]: Nobody was tested. It was just crazy.
We tested everybody, and those that we had to let in
we tested in brackets in the back.
Yeah.
[Sharpton]: Everybody's here?
The busses are in, but they have to walk over
from Union Station.
Good to see you. You all right?
-They treating you all right? -Yeah.
If they don't take care of you, you let me know.
[chanting "No justice--no peace!"]
No racist police.
[Man]: Show me what democracy looks like!
[Group]: This is what democracy looks like!
[Sharpton]: You slowly helped some families to understand
that it's bigger than them,
and that their loved one can be the Emmett Till,
can be the symbol,
then we can change it for other families.
We can't bring 'em back. I wish we could.
[Reporter]: Reverend Sharpton,
What is your call to action?
We want to push the George Floyd Policing and Justice bill
and the John Lewis voting bill.
They ought to go to their senators, email them,
and say those bills must pass.
But we can make a historic statement
if we just work together.
Anything you need, let us know. All right? Anything.
I'm gonna give you my number if you need anything.
You have to have somebody that's been there with them,
they know what to talk about,
that's not coming in with platitudes and all,
but they're coming with real-life stuff.
And I've been there.
[cheers and applause]
[Sharpton]: When I go up, have Mr. Blake, Philonise Floyd,
Breonna's mother, and Arbery's father standing,
ready to come down when I call.
I always questioned when I was younger,
why did God let this happen?
To me, my father, my sister.
[cheers and applause]
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
No justice!
[Crowd]: No peace!
[Sharpton]: And I thought about it later in life,
that if I hadn't went through that,
I probably couldn't have ministered to those families,
'cause I would've never known that experience.
2020, we must deal with police brutality.
2020, we must deal with those
that want to rob our right to vote.
[applause]
[Sharpton]: So I know what a lot of those families I end up
later in life had to go through, 'cause I was that kid.
And I didn't come to shame 'em or use 'em.
I came to help 'em
and help the cause.
I bring you the brother of George Floyd,
Philonise Floyd.
But you can't ignore their needs to help the cause.
And I never talk about it, won't talk about it now.
That's between me and the families.
It's part of that vow I made.
[Philonise]: I wish George were here to see this right now.
That's who I'm marching for.
I'm marching for George, for Breonna,
for Ahmaud, for Jacob,
for Michael Brown, Trayvon,
and anybody else who lost their lives.
All to evil...
[indistinct chatter]
Sorry man.
[shouts of "George Floyd!"]
[shouts of "Breonna Taylor!"]
[shouts of "Jacob Blake!"]
[shouts of "George Floyd!"]
[Man]: Atatiana Jefferson!
Jemel Roberson!
Ahmaud Arbery!
Sylville Smith!
DeAndre Barber!
Terence Crutcher!
Trayvon Martin!
[Woman]: You need some water, Rev?
[indistinct chatter]
[Man]: Testing, one, two, three, four.
[distant cheers]
-[Man]: Say his name! -[Group]: George Floyd!
[Sharpton]: This is the first time
in the history of this state
that a white police officer has been convicted of a murder.
This is the first time in a long ray of fights
that we've seen three counts guilty in all three.
We don't find pleasure in this.
The war and the fight is not over.
Just two days from now,
we're going to have to deal with the funeral of
Daunte Wright in this same area.
Before we do anything, we first wanna pray.
We believe in a God that can even get through the cracks
of the jury room and bring conscious and bring truth.
And that jury, we wanna thank them
for letting God give them the strength.
Wherever they are tonight, we want them to know
we broke down in tears when we heard the verdict.
We had to hold each other and hug and tears,
because too many nights we've cried,
many of us for decades, spent nights in jail.
But today we can wipe our tears away
and fight on for another day.
There's sunlight.
We're gonna keep going 'til we bring it for the Eric Gardners
and the Breonna Taylors, whose boyfriend is here tonight.
[Man]: Kenny Walker.
Kenny Walker.
[applause]
Sean Bell, so many that did not get this night,
this night is for them.
Let us pray.
What about the meeting?
Are you satisfied with what went on in there?
We asked the police commissioner point blank
to suspend-- emphatically suspend
the officer in question.
And we got a lot of runaround about that.
[Sharpton]: Dear God, we thank you
for giving us the strength to stand together.
Sometimes we would question each other.
Sometimes we say this is just gonna be a waste of time.
A young man was shot and his murderer has not been punished.
And, I mean, you can talk about long range, short range,
any kind of investigations you want.
[Sharpton]: And Lord, let George know
that his name is going down in history.
And we give you the praise.
Thank you, and God, we give you the glory.
These blessings we ask in your name, amen.
[All]: Amen!
Amen!
[applause]
[Sharpton]: You have white policemen
policing the community that have the same mentality
that this man has.
So, I mean, you're talking about the grand jury
and an investigation, a DA, means nothing to us.
The only thing that means something to us
is direct action--
pull the white policeman out and deal with that situation.
Reverend Alfred Sharpton,
chairman of the National Youth Movement.
[Terrence Floyd]: Reverend Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton,
they lived to see this.
Their fight wasn't in vain.
It just didn't happen when they did it.
But it happened now.
Let's make sure, Reverend Al, that this moment
will be documented for our children yet unborn
as they continue on the journey to justice.
[Sharpton]: I never thought I would see
a policeman convicted on all three charges.
Movements need victories.
The George Floyd verdict gave us that victory.
[Female reporter]: Congratulations. Thank you so much.
[Sharpton]: When I started at 18 years old
as a youth director for
Shirley Chisolm for President in '72,
we never dreamed of a Black woman being vice president.
When we would boycott and picket
supermarkets and stores in my teen years
in Operation Breadbasket,
it was not even in the realm of fantasy
that we'd see Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Don't tell me things won't change.
I kept telling family after family that we keep going,
at some point, we'll break through.
I sat on the stage when a Black man named Barack Hussein Obama
put his hand on Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King's bible
and was sworn in president of the United States.
I've seen too much change to feel that nothing will change.
I've seen a lot of things go backwards,
but I keep the change in my head because the change I've seen
makes me know that if we keep going, we can break through.
I want to use for a subject, "No Justice, No Peace."
[applause]
I want 50, 100 years from now for somebody to say,
there was a time police used to get way with brutality.
There was a time that they gave a Voting Rights Act,
and it lasted 50 years,
and the Supreme Court took the gut out of it.
And oh, there was a little fat guy from Brooklyn
who dropped out of college.
When he got older, he lost the weight.
He was on the front line to help in all of that.
Nobody will care what kind of apartment I have.
Nobody will care how much money I made.
They'll care that I was one of them.
Did those two or three things in history.
That's all. That's all.
And when I see my mentors in heaven, I can tell them...
I got some stuff done.
[Reporter]: I wonder if this moment feels different
on a legislative and policy front.
[Sharpton]: I do.
We're dealing with a police case in Columbus, Ohio.
Dealing with a shooting in North Carolina.
We're dealing with the killing here, Daunte.
If now is not the time,
I don't know when it ever will be the time.
[Reporter]: Reverend Al Sharpton, thank you so much,
on a day like today, for making some time to talk to us.
[string music]
[music]
There's a truth we cannot stop facing
It is what it is
There's a hope we will not stop chasing
Now til the end
Couldn't breathe
Searched the whole world to find some relief
Helped me see
Power
Running through me
[Choir]: Power!
Help me use it
All of the people, all of the people
got power
Power
Power, can't deny it
[Choir]: Power!
No use fighting
All of the people, all of the people got power
[Choir]: Power!
[Na Na Na]
Having faith has never been easy
In this world
It can take in a day more than years can leave you
It already hurts, and we make it worse
Know you're tired
And distraction's a sign of the times
Don't stand by
Power
Running through me
[Choir]: Power!
Help me use it
All of the people, all of the people
got power
Power
Power, can't deny it
[Choir]: Power!
No use fighting
All of the people, all of the people got power
[Choir]: Power!
Couldn't breathe
Ran the whole world to find some relief
Helped me see
Know you're tired
And distraction's a sign of the times
Don't stand by
[Na Na Na]
[Choir Sings]
[Choir]: Power!
Running through me
[Choir]: Power!
Help me use it
All of the people, all of the people got power
[Choir]: Power!
Power
Can't deny it
[Choir]: Power!
No use fighting
All of the people, all of the people got power
[Choir]: Power!
Power
How will you use it?
[Choir]: Power!
Chaos or beauty?
All of the people got power
Power