Al Sharpton Quotes

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.

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.

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

Demonstrations must be dignified and nonviolent, as the overwhelming protests in Ferguson and Staten Island have been. Do not confuse anarchists who don't want the system to work and thugs who want to exploit a situation with the majority who from day one have operated with impeccable nonviolence and clear goals.

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

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 disagree with Muhammad. I'm against hate, anti-Semitism and homophobia. ... This is not a village of hate. It's a village of hope. ... Don't let midgets give us a bad name. There are still giants in Harlem giants who will stand up for our children.

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.

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

But resist we much. We must, and we will much- about that- be committed.

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.

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?

The resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is met with both pride and disappointment by the Civil Rights community. We are proud that he has been the best Attorney General on Civil Rights in U.S. history and disappointed because he leaves at a critical time when we need his continued diligence most.

I think drugs affect poor people and people of color more than anyone.

The promise of America is one immigration policy for all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of rules for everybody. We cannot welcome those to come and then try and act as though any culture will not be respected or treated inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and preach 'one language.' No one gave them an English test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for America.

What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?

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.

I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. Grand jury said there wasn't. Okay, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O.J. Simpson was guilty. A jury said he wasn't. So I have as much right to question a jury as they do. Does it make somebody a racist? No! They just disagreed with the jury. So did I.

I've gone from, you know, being too close to politicians, to being too close to entertainers, and people's father that I'm not.

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.

I think that any time you look at the fact that boycotts have historically led to change, whatever temporary inconvenience there may be, it in the long run leads toward, in my opinion, a better change for everybody.

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.

When you're dealing with boycotts, you don't need everyone. You just need enough to be effective.

Throughout my years championing for civil rights, analyzing politics and advocating on behalf of the voiceless, I am disturbed the most when harmless children suffer because of politics or detrimental policies.

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

They tried to say that being gay is a sin, and I said that adultery is a sin. Adultery is responsible for breaking up more marriages, but do we put that in the Constitution? It's absurd.

Evangelicals catapulted George W. Bush back to the White House.

The Democratic Party hasn't whipped anybody into a frenzy. The assumption is that the people that are marching and protesting and standing up against this don't have enough sense to stand up for their own interests.

In order to establish peace, you must have fair justice for everyone.

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.

When people discuss the 1960s and the great Civil Rights Era, they often speak in romantic terms as if there wasn't immense work put in, and as if there wasn't immense sacrifice that took place. But none of those battles were easily fought and won; there were sustained movements behind them.

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.'

I cannot imagine where we would have been without BET. Many like me who operate in black America can only get our balanced story told nationally on BET talk shows.

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

I very rarely read any fiction. I love biographies; I read about all kinds of people. I love theology and some philosophy.

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.

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.

As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable.

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

You can't get a solution if you won't talk to the people that have the problem. You can't ever have healing if the patient is left out of the operation room.

It was better walk with dignity than ride in shame. A lot of people in Cincinnati are saying, "Rather than have the continual problems of police brutality and economic disparity, I'm willing to make some sacrifices." And I think that they ought to be respected for doing that.

There are white n*ggers. I've seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time.

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.

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

President Obama telling Americans not to panic in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

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.

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.

The boxing world is full of all kinds of corruption.

While the rest of the country waves the flag of Americana, we understand we are not part of that. We don't owe America anything - America owes us.

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.

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.

There's no reason why children in inner cities or rural areas do not receive the same quality education or opportunities as those in suburbs or wealthy neighborhoods. If we truly believe in giving all citizens a chance to pursue happiness and pursue their goals, then we cannot continue to marginalize entire groups of people.

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

America can't work for only some people and become a dream for all people. It has to work for everyone. And even though everyone might not end up at the same place, if everyone starts with the same beginning, then that's the dream fulfilled. We all don't have the same abilities, but we should have the same opportunities.

We need to make some real fundamental change from the Constitution down in this country.

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

I'm projected as an ambulance chaser, but I'm more the ambulance. People call me because they know I will come ... I have never fought a case where they didn't ask me to come. People have
this picture like I'm sitting up in bed at night with a walkie-talkie. "You hear anything? Oh, let's run! It's Virginia today!" ... Every victim calls us ... "Who put Sharpton in charge?" The
victim!

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

You don't need any indictment in order to arrest someone; probable cause is sufficient to arrest civilians, so it must be enough to arrest police.

Bill Clinton strikes me as the kind of guy who goes wherever the polls lead him, rather than leading the polls.

I feel that it is our moral obligation to stand and to be courageous with these families, and particularly Cindy, that have become the conscience of this nation.

I don't think Dr. King helped racial harmony, I think he helped racial justice. What I profess to do is help the oppressed and if I cause a load of discomfort in the white community and the black community, that in my opinion means I'm being effective, because I'm not trying to make them comfortable. The job of an activist is to make people tense and cause social change.

I haven't done the things I've done to be in a sitcom.

I wanted to say to Governor Dean, don't be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I'd still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.

We blacks had problems in the '60s and we solved them by marching. We've still got problems - let's march.

I knew from the age of four that I wanted to preach. I didn't even consider it strange that grown people were listening to this kid preaching until I was around thirteen. I have never believed in limitations.

So (if) some cracker come and tell you 'Well, my mother and father blood go back to the Mayflower,' you better hold your pocket. That ain't nothing to be proud of. That means their forefathers was crooks.

Don't talk to us like we ignint!

It is time to bring down the volume and bring up the program.

I've never seen an effective boycott that didn't work.

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

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

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.

As a Baptist minister, I don't have the right to impose my views on anyone else. If committed gay and lesbian couples want to marry, that is their business; none of us should stand in their way

I've never done anything else in my life other than preach and be an activist. Way before I was known.

I could have easily been a statistic. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., it was easy - a little too easy - to get into trouble. Surrounded by poor schools, lack of resources, high unemployment rates, poverty, gangs and more, I watched as many of my peers fell victim to a vicious cycle of diminished opportunities and imprisonment.

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.

The United States government has the obligation to educate all young people in this country.

As a preacher who has spent significant time in churches and houses of worship all across the country, I can tell you firsthand that religious liberty and freedom are principles that can never be infringed upon.

If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicize a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey ... then I should be praised for it, and it's more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.

My ordination in the Church of God in Christ was at age 9, and I later became a Baptist minister, which I am today.

I actually lost more weight than I am!

We're not anti-police ... we're anti-police brutality.

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.

Crime is going down everywhere but in the New York City Police Department.

It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres. We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

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

I was raised by a single mother who made a way for me. She used to scrub floors as a domestic worker, put a cleaning rag in her pocketbook and ride the subways in Brooklyn so I would have food on the table. But she taught me as I walked her to the subway that life is about not where you start, but where you're going. That's family values.

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.

White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires ... We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was ... we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.

How do you make things fair?

Who defines terrorists? Today's terrorist is tomorrow's friend.

My ministry's always been one of social activism. I think a responsible minister must be at some levels involved in the social order.

Better to die of something than to die in old age of nothing.

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.