A flamboyant and controversial African American political activist, Sharpton was fully ordained as a Pentecostal minister by the time he was 10. Born into a middle class black family in Brooklyn, the Sharptons descended into poverty after Al Sharpton Sr. abandoned the family around the same time. In 1969, when he was just 14, he became youth director of the New York branch of Operation Breadbasket, organized by activist Jesse Jackson, which distributed food in poor black communities. His teenage years were spent involved in a number of civil rights causes, and in 1970 he founded the National Youth Movement, an organization devoted to the problems of black urban youth. From 1973 to 1980, Sharpton worked as soul singer James Brown's tour manager. He remarked that Brown became "like the father I never had."

In the 1980s Sharpton became involved in a series of high profile, racially charged court cases. He received national attention for organizing protests surrounding the 1985 Bernard Goetz case, in which Goetz, a white subway rider, shot four black youths whom he thought were going to rob him, and in the 1986 Howard Beach case, which involved the death of a black man named Michael Griffith, who was hit by a car and killed in Howard Beach, Queens, after being chased by a white mob. Sharpton has been involved in a series of other causes, including the "Central Park jogger" case (1990), Crown Heights case (1991), and the Amadou Diallo case (1999), among others.

In 1991, Sharpton founded his own civil rights organization, the National Action Network, which he continues to run today. Reverend Sharpton's runs for political office in 1992, 1994 and 1997 shook the New York State political establishment. His first campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate garnered him 70 percent of the state-wide Black vote and helped three Black legislators achieve victory. His challenge of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan astounded the pundits, who were quieted when Reverend Sharpton tallied more than 80 percent of the statewide African-American vote and 26 percent of the general vote. In his 1997 run for New York City Mayor, he came within 1 percent of forcing a Democratic Primary run-off.

In 1999, Reverend Sharpton joined forces with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree to form "Second Chance," a program for non-violent felony offenders who have served their prison sentences. The project offers training, counseling and support for ex-convicts with non-violent records and is available to all without regard to race or gender.

From Sudan to Cincinnati, Reverend Al Sharpton has been one of the world's foremost civil rights leaders for over two decades, piloting the ongoing battle against economic injustice, political inequity and corporate racism. He has played a major role in virtually every significant move for civil liberty, community empowerment and economic equality.

Time magazine has asserted that Reverend Sharpton is the "most important black leader in the city of New York," and that minorities consider him to be the new head of the civil rights movement. He has already risen as the pivotal spokesperson against police brutality in America, having shed light on the travesty by forcing major political figures and city leaders across America to look closely at the issue. He has discussed racial profiling and police brutality with major leaders nationwide, including former United States Attorney General Janet Reno. As a result of Reverend Sharpton's efforts, one of the major campaign issues in the 2001 U.S. Presidential election was racial profiling.

The story of Reverend Sharpton's career--recounted in his 1996 book, Go and Tell the Pharaoh: The Autobiography of Reverend Al Sharpton --begins not long after his birth in 1954 in Brooklyn, New York.

The efforts of Reverend Sharpton are unflagging, his voice unwavering and his energy tireless. He is a voice of the people--ALL people, fighting for civil liberty and economic equality. He stands for those who have been unjustly accused or wrongly brutalized, and makes the call for economic empowerment, fair labor practices and partial business policy. His actions have caused change--a change for the better in this multicultural age.

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