Al Sharpton Quotes

24 Sourced Quotes

I do believe the [Democratic] party has moved far to the right. I do believe that the party has a bunch of elephants running around in donkey clothes.

Al Sharpton
When he said he was going to stop the march and called it a hate march, I think that was very provocative. The Mayor's statements have created a climate that could possibly lead to some kind of confrontation.

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

Al Sharpton
Tawana Brawley told her story many months before I got involved—and many others got involved, Bill Cosby, and many others, who have never refuted the story. I don't refute it now. I believe … something happened to Tawana Brawley.… There is a problem in this country, that a lot of people don't believe women. A lot of people don't believe young women. I took the risk, as I have in most of the civil rights cases I have fought, to stand up for the victim. In this particular case, a jury did not believe her.

Al Sharpton
I have no problem with Khalid Abdul Muhammad. My problem is with Giuliani. It is not Khalid who is talking hate. It's Rudy Giuliani.

Al Sharpton
Clearly, [President Bush] lied. Now if he is an unconscious liar, and doesn't realize when he's lying, then we're really in trouble.

Al Sharpton
Who defines terrorists? Today's terrorist is tomorrow's friend. We were the ones that worked with Saddam Hussein. The United States worked with bin Laden.

Al Sharpton
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!

Al Sharpton
The neon sign of one's inner thought is the clothes that one puts on one's body. Fashion in many ways defines the self-concept and character of the individual, and it gives a message to the audience. One has to gear one's message to how seriously one wants to be taken.

Al Sharpton
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.

Al Sharpton
There is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear … that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.

Al Sharpton
I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the [Supreme] court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school.

Al Sharpton
I disagreed with the grand jury on [Tawana] Brawley. I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. The grand jury said there wasn't. OK, 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.

Al Sharpton
White folks was in caves while we were building empires…. We taught philosophy and astrology [sic] and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos ever got around to it.

Al Sharpton
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.

Al Sharpton
There's a difference between peace and quiet. Quiet means shut up. Quiet means suffer in silence. Peace means justice. We want peace, but we won't get quiet until we get justice.

Al Sharpton
Now that they have achieved the capture of Hussein, they should appeal to the UN to come in with a multilateral redevelopment plan. This is all the more reason this war should come to an immediate end.

Al Sharpton
Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question. You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. 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.

Al Sharpton
We stated openly that Steven Pagones, the assistant district attorney, did it. His lawyers say he may or may not sue us. If we're lying, sue us, so we can go into court with you and prove you did it.

Al Sharpton
I disagree with [Khalid Abdul] 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.

Al Sharpton
Jim Crow is old. That's not who I'm mindful of today. The problem is that Jim Crow has sons. The one we've got to battle is James Crow Jr., Esq. He's a little more educated. He's a little slicker. He's a little more polished, but the results are the same.

Al Sharpton
I want his children to know: wasn't anything strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with.

Al Sharpton
Though there were over 200 policemen standing around, none of them made a move to grab him.

Al Sharpton
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.

Al Sharpton