Al Sharpton

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr born October 3 1954 is an American civil rights activist Baptist minister televisionradio talk show host and a former White House adviser for President Barack Obama In 2004 he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the US presidential election He hosts his own radio talk show Keepin It Real and he makes regular guest appearances cable news television In 2011 he was named the host of MSNBCs PoliticsNation a nightly talk show In 2015 the program was shifted to Sunday mornings Sharptons supporters praise his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering and consider him a man who is willing to tell it like it is Former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch a onetime foe said that Sharpton deserves the respect he enjoys among black Americans He is willing to go to jail for them and he is there when they need him President Barack Obama said that Sharpton is the voice of the voiceless and a champion for the downtrodden A 2013 Zogby Analytics poll found that one quarter of African Americans said that Sharpton speaks for them His critics describe him as a political radical who is to blame in part for the deterioration of race relations Sociologist Orlando Patterson has referred to him as a racial arsonist while liberal columnist Derrick Z Jackson has called him the black equivalent of Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan Sharpton sees much of the criticism as a sign of his effectiveness In many ways what they consider criticism is complimenting my job he said An activists job is to make public civil rights issues until there can be a climate for change Wikipedia