Al Sharpton Quotes

We need an amendment that gives us the right to vote protected by the federal government and the Constitution.

We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder.

We have defeated Jim Crow, but now we have to deal with his son, James Crow Jr., esquire.

When the culture of police departments is sometimes infused with bias or preconceived ideas against certain groups, there needs to be reform and retraining throughout. And unfortunately, we cannot rely on local departments to police themselves; we need intervention from the top.

James Brown became my father. He would talk to me the way a father talked to a son. He became the father I never had.

National Action Network, the group I founded, has affiliates or chapters in over 40 cities around the country.

In New York, you are competing with Times Square lights and all of that, so you’ve got to be 300 pounds and crazy to get anyone’s attention. Then, you can refine yourself. I always knew under those 300 pounds and tracksuits was a refined, slim, dignified man.

I was there during the first elections in South Africa. I watched them take down the apartheid flag and raise the new flag.

I could take all the cartoons in the tabloid newspapers, but I couldn’t take my daughter punching me in the belly and asking why I was so fat. That was my inspiration to lose the weight. And probably the last time anyone hurt my feelings.

We cannot reform institutional racism or systemic policies if we are not actively engaged. It’s not enough to simply complain about injustice; the only way to prevent future injustice is to create the society we would like to see, one where we are all equal under the law.

Following Michael Brown’s death, I went to Ferguson and met with his parents. I stood with them as they tried to hold their heads high and deal with both their immense loss and the larger issues of police-community relations.

As a kid who grew up chubby, I just marveled at the fact that I could be thin.

In every era going back to Lincoln with Frederick Douglass, presidents talk to those that were leading at that time.

Either we need to redefine what probable cause means and say that police are not subject to it, or we arrest officers right away just as we would with any other person accused of committing a crime. Either we write new laws or enforce existing ones; we cannot have it both ways.

Dr. King used Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence and to passive resistance.

As I stood and gave the eulogy for young Michael Brown last week, I kept thinking about the fact that this child should have been in college instead of laying in a coffin.

Everything from who sits on your local board of education to the prosecutors and judicial appointments in your area and much more are all impacted by who holds political office.

If companies can refuse to provide coverage for women, what other objections to the Affordable Care Act will we see based on ‘religious grounds’? For that matter, will ‘religious freedom’ be used as an excuse to discriminate against other minorities and disenfranchised groups across the board? Where will it end?

I won vice president of my student body in high school. That doesn’t mean anything.

I can call a march, and thousands come out, and I happen to have access to the White House at the same time.

In Ferguson, there are witnesses who say Brown had his hands up when he was shot. That should be enough probable cause to go to trial to then determine if Officer Wilson is guilty or not. It is at trial that he can then defend himself and his attorneys can present their own witnesses and their own defense.

I always beat the sun up in the morning. It’s the secret to why I’m double trouble.

The United States isn’t a dictatorship ruling with a brutal army and an iron fist, so our police departments must understand that they are there to serve and protect us – all of us. And when they do commit crimes, they must be arrested and prosecuted like anyone else, bottom line.

My organization, National Action Network (NAN), was on the ground talking and meeting with people in Ferguson, just as we did in Staten Island following Eric Garner’s death.

One of the reasons I get so much joy out of my own children’s childhoods is that I’m having my first childhood myself.

It seems some have chosen to ignore or have simply forgotten the big-picture vision promoted by Dr. King and his kin.

I’m never going to be fat – never again. I’m going to make it easy on my pallbearers.

I’ve seen too much in life to give up.

I’ve seen enough things to know that if you just keep on going, if you turn the corner, the sun will be shining.

Dr. King’s general principles are universal. But the things he confronted took place in another era.

If you can get the proper definition of trouble, then we can find out who the real troublemakers are.

From racial profiling and being pulled over just for ‘driving while black’ to this new phenomenon of killing unarmed people out of some preconceived idea of fear, our lives and our children’s lives are not being valued.

I was the first candidate to come out against this war, spoke at every anti-war march.

I’m a patriot in the truest sense of the word.

If O.J. had been accused of killing his black wife, you would not have seen the same passion stirred up.

I’ve learned how to measure what I say. Al Sharpton in 1986 was trying to be heard. I was a local guy and was like, ‘Y’all are ignoring us.’

We’re not anti-police… we’re anti-police brutality.

The horrific cases in Ferguson, in Staten Island with the death of Eric Garner, and all across the country serve as stark reminders that we must have a say in who polices us, and how that policing is done. We must, we must, let our voices be heard on Election Day.

My message to everyone: the next time you hear about migrant children near the border, just picture them as your own. Then think what you would want our government to do.

In Staten Island, when you have video showing the alleged chokehold used on Eric Garner, why not go to trial and have the officer(s) explain the tape, and then this jury can determine guilt or innocence? The tape should guarantee that there should be a trial.

How do you make things fair?

The right wing always mobilizes around constitutional amendments: the right to bear arms, school prayer.

Let me be clear: as I have said repeatedly, I do not believe that all police officers are bad, nor do I believe that most are bad. But there must be a transparent, impartial and fair system to judge those that engage in criminal or unethical acts.

The dream was not to put one black family in the White House, the dream was to make everything equal in everybody’s house.

If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.

During my 2004 presidential campaign, I was fond of saying that it was high time for the Christian right to meet the right Christians.

Like myself, President Obama is the father of two daughters. He understands the obstacles that they face as women, but he also understands the emergency of the state of young black men in America.

Local prosecutors work alongside local police officers on a regular basis and are therefore conflicted when it comes to prosecuting those same officers. They are under extreme pressure from local police unions and from rank-and-file cops.

If Charlton Heston can have a constitutional right carry a rifle, why can’t grandma have a constitutional right to health care?

It is up to us to change laws on the books like ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws and push elected officials to enact regulations that hold police officers to the same standards as the rest of society. This is why we vote.