Reverend Al Sharpton

=Al Sharpton = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



{C} Alfred Charles   "Al" Sharpton, Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host.[1 ][2 ] In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin' It Real,[3 ] and he makes regular guest appearances on Fox News (such as on The O'Reilly Factor),[4 ][5 ][6 ]CNN, and MSNBC. In 2011, he was named the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show.[7 ]

Sharpton's supporters praise "his ability and willingness to defy the power structure that is seen as the cause of their suffering"[8 ]and consider him "a man who is willing to tell it like it is".[8 ] Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a one-time 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."[9 ]

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton



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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:25.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:black">The Reverend Al Sharpton

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:13.5pt"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#666666">He's a political and civil rights activist, but the Reverend Al Sharpton was also a dear friend of the late singer James Brown. Gayle welcomes Al to the show to talk about and share personal memories of his mentor and father figure.

Al recalls his first meeting with James more than 35 years ago. At the age of 16, Al was leading a civil rights organization for youth in New York. It was there where he became friends with 16-year-old Teddy Brown, James's son. Shortly after, Teddy died in a car accident, and when James came to New York, he asked to meet the young preacher who was friends with his son.

"He says, 'I'm going to do a concert in memory of my son and I'm going to give you the money, and if you listen to me, I'm going to make your youth group the biggest youth group in the world, in memory of my son,'" Al recalls James telling him. "So we did the show—sold out. Two weeks later he brought me on Soul Train."

Al says that meeting the man whose concerts he attended with his own biological father was "surreal." "One, [James] was the biggest artist in the world at the time," Al says. "Secondly, it [brought back] the memories of my father. Thirdly, I really admired him. … I mean, I thought I was in the presence of deity."

When James found out that Al's father left the family when he was young, Al says James took it upon himself to act as his father figure. "Every two or three weeks he would send for me. … You gotta remember, I'm a kid living in the projects, my mom's a domestic worker, and overnight I'm flying around James Brown's private jet and everybody from Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson is hanging out backstage asking me can they see Mr. Brown. So I automatically have stature now!"

Al says James began trusting him with things that he didn't trust others with. In addition, James would counsel Al in any and all matters, and their father-son relationship grew. Al says he and James would talk frequently, and that James was a constant source of inspiration and encouragement in his life.

But Al says there was one area in James's life they never discussed: James's battles with the law, drugs and alcohol. "I'll be completely honest with you: He would not talk about a lot of that with me," Al says. "And people ask me why. And I say, 'Let me ask you a question: Would you talk to your child about your dark side?' He never wanted me to see that. I can't say that things didn't happen, I can only say that he wouldn't do that around me. Because you wouldn't do that in front of the people who you knew looked up to you."

Al was one of the first people notified when James passed away on Christmas Day. At 3 a.m., Al received a call from James's longtime personal manager who told him James had died. "I just [hung up] the phone and went back and laid down because I was trying to tell myself I was having a bad dream," Al says. "I couldn't go to sleep so I got up and went back to the cell phone…and I called [him] back and said, 'Did you just call me?' And he said, 'Reverend, wake up. Mr. Brown died an hour ago.' And just like that—no warning, no anything."

Al says he'll miss James's comfort and fatherly guidance more than anything else. "He would always have advice; he was like the guiding guy," Al says. "Even though I would have my own mind, he was the one person that could tell me something and I couldn't shut him up."

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:black"> Read more:  http://www.oprah.com/oprahradio/The-Reverend-Al-Sharpton

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=<span style="font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#111111">Al Sharpton Reinvents Himself For His Second Act = <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">{C}

<p style="margin-top:0in;line-height:12pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(105,105,105);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">First Posted: 12/18/2011 10:14 am <span style="font-size:6pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(105,105,105);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(105,105,105);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Updated: 12/19/2011 11:34 pm <span style="font-size:8.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:dimgray">

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<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">At 57, the Rev. Al Sharpton is a long way from the young, overweight firebrand and street activist, known for his perfectly coiffed 'do and his closetful of multicolored jogging suits — the provocateur whom some people wanted dead.

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">On a chilly January day 20 years ago, a drunken man with a steak knife stumbled through a mass of protesters in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and plunged it into Sharpton's chest. The man, Michael Riccardi, said at the time that he thought killing Sharpton would make him a hero in the neighborhood.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">It was the bad old days of racial strife and violence in New York City, and Sharpton, a Baptist minister and local activist, had gone to the neighborhood with busloads of angry black protesters after<span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">the death of 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins, who was beaten by a mob of whites and then shot.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Sharpton survived the stabbing, but the years that followed brought new character assaults and controversies: the aftermath of the Crown Heights Riots, the <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Freddie's Fashion Mart killings, his arrest<span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">while protesting on Vieques Island and<span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">tax issues related to his National Action Network.

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Today he is a lean and dapper multimedia activist, who has carved out a public and political niche that few if any black activists have ever enjoyed. He hosts a daily talk radio show based in New York; leads the National Action Network, a social justice organization headquartered in Harlem that, since its founding in 1991, has seeded chapters in cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., and Atlanta; and more recently, has become the face of the cable news show "Politics Nation" on MSNBC. (He still has the perfectly coiffed 'do.)

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"When I was a kid coming up, we'd say you can't talk to the man, but we are the man now," Sharpton told the Huffington Post on a recent afternoon as he readied to take the set of "Politics Nation." "I think, to me this is like the second part of my life."

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Fans and critics are tuning in at 6 p.m. each night to see him on MSNBC, the left-leaning answer to Fox News and the Tea Party set. He's an avid <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">blogger, <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">tweeter and social networker, a hybrid activist/pundit with a platform that extends beyond his traditional black base and well into the mainstream.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"Twenty years ago, I was stabbed. I just started the National Action Network, and we were in the middle of trying to redirect what was going on [in society] at the time," he said. <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">"Twenty years later I'm healthier," having gone from over 300 pounds at his heaviest to just over 175 pounds now, thanks to a healthier diet and daily exercise. And he said the financial issues related to his National Action Network, which had fallen behind on its taxes, have been resolved.

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">While other hosts at MSNBC, like Rachel Maddow, are unapologetic in their political opinions and have allowed them to color or direct their message, Sharpton's status there is quite different. Rarely has a major network handed over precious airtime to not just a non-journalist, but a non-journalist who is still very much a working activist and organizer.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"We are breaking the mold," Phil Griffin, the network's president, told  The New York Times  in September, when Sharpton took over the show from host Cenk Uyger. "Anything he does on the streets, he can talk about on air -- we won't hide anything."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Ratings for "Politics Nation" have grown ince Sharpton took over. According to TVNEWSER, "Politics Nation" was second in the ratings for cable news programs in its timeslot for both total viewers and viewers between ages 25 and 54 — behind Fox News Channel but ahead of programs on CNN and the Headline News Network. His ratings jumped from 655,000 viewers a night in October to 767,000 in November, according to Nielsen.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Sharpton also enjoyed <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">access to President Barack Obama and the White House. While other black political and media figures like Tavis Smiley have used their platform to criticize President Barack Obama, Sharpton — who himself has run for Senate, for mayor of New York City and the presidency — has been an outspoken supporter.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"It is true that activists have not previously been given the kind of platform that Sharpton has," said Richard Prince, a blogger and journalist who covers blacks in the media on the website, <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Richard Prince's Journal-isms. "But neither have other activists transformed themselves into people with an inside track at the White House or become expert practitioners of the talk-show game."

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Sharpton's transition to the political mainstream might also be an indicator of a move away from racial protest politics toward a generation of activists who don't see black issues in isolation from wider, systemic problems. "There's a philosophical power struggle going on in black America between the old-school protesters and the post-ideological pragmatists," the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, a senior policy advisor to the Church of God in Christ, told  the Washington Post  last year. "Al Sharpton learned more quickly than many others that the ascension of Obama meant the end of protest politics."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"Al Sharpton," he continued, "has grown from the premier politician of protest to the ultimate political pragmatist."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Sharpton said that back in the old days, "[he] could have never imagined meeting with senior-level officials and members of the president's cabinet, let alone that we would have a black president," Sharpton said. "It's like unreal, and then you get to the end of the year and MSNBC offers this deal — it's a situation that some of the older civil rights leaders never had."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"America has grown and I've grown," he said. "After a while, you take so many hits. And people after a while say, 'You know what? He wouldn't stay there if he didn't really believe in what he was doing. I've done 90 days in jail [for protesting on Vieques Island]. I've been stabbed. That didn't even happen to many people in the '50s or '60s."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">He continued: "So yeah, you can take your shots, say I'm an opportunist. But no opportunist or someone seeking publicity is going to go through all of that."

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">Sharpton credits <span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">his mentor and father figure, James Brown, for giving him the confidence to be himself, no matter what.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"><span style="color:rgb(237,74,75);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Brown once told him, "If you continue to be faithful, sooner or later you'll break through," Sharpton said. So though he had for years been a thorn in the side of -- and pariah to -- the mainstream, Sharpton said that he kept fighting for what he believed in, very publicly and in his own style.

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">"I never wanted to lose my authenticity. You can make it and still be you. I didn't want to be someone else to make it," he said. "I still wear my hair the same way. I'm still the same Al Sharpton. You just mature."

<p style="margin:0in0in6pt;line-height:13.5pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";color:black">He said that Brown, King, Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. and a number of other activists paved the way for him.

<p class="MsoNormal">Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/08/the-rebirth-of-rev-al-sha_n_1136441.html

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0in;text-indent:-0.25in;line-height:0%;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;color:#444444">·          <span style="font-size: 11.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:#444444"><span style="color:rgb(51,153,204);">{C} =<span style="font-size:26.5pt;font-family:'ArialNarrow',sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,51);">Revvies controversy inspires Rev. Sharpton to bust a move = <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:17.1pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:"ArialNarrow","sans-serif";color:#444444"><span style="color:rgb(0,51,102);">Morgan Whitaker, '<span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:"ArialNarrow","sans-serif"; color:#444444">  '<span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:"ArialNarrow","sans-serif";color:#444444"><span style="color:rgb(0,51,102);">@morganwinn '''<span style="font-size:15.0pt;font-family:"ArialNarrow","sans-serif";color:#444444"> '''

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<p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:18pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; color:#888888">Rev. Sharpton shows off his James Brown-inspired dance moves.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:18pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:#444444">On tonight’s PoliticsNation, host Reverend Al Sharpton addressed the outcry that came from show fans after he awarded the Revvie for “Best Musical Performance” to Chris Christie instead of Barack Obama.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:18pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:#444444">Christie, who won the prize for his performance of “Thunder Road,” beat out Obama’s brief but memorable rendition of a verse from the Al Green hit “Let’s Stay Together.” Fans ofPoliticsNation complained that Obama deserved the award over that of his bi-partisan buddy.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:18pt;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";color:#444444">But the whole controversy inspired “Rev” to show off his own James Brown dance moves. <p class="MsoNormal">Read more: http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/27/revvies-controversy-inspires-rev-sharpton-to-bust-a-move/

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<p class="MsoNormal"> =<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);">All Rev’d Up = <p style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:15.0pt;margin-left: 0in"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#444444">The Rev. Al Sharpton On jailhouse dieting, adolescent preaching, and James Brown’s inspirational hairdo.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Q&A by <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">by George Wayne <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Photograph by <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">  <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(39,39,39);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Gasper Tringale <span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#272727">

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">{C}“I have never believed in limitations.”

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:67.5pt;color:rgb(224,0,0);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">B <span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333">orn and raised in Brooklyn, the Reverend Al Sharpton began preaching at age four. Since then, his role has expanded to include civil-rights activist, author, presidential candidate—and now host of MSNBC’s nightly news program '' Politics Nation. ''

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">GEORGE WAYNE: <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">I’m sitting here looking at you, Reverend, and can’t help but think that Reverend Al and Karl Lagerfeld must be following the same diet regimen. You both were chubs, but are now skinnier than Wilt Chamberlain was. ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">AL SHARPTON: <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family: "Georgia","serif";color:#333333">First of all, I was not a chub—I used to be fat. Ten years ago I went to lead a protest in Vieques, Puerto Rico, at the navy base there, and was given a 90-day jail sentence. While in jail I called for a hunger strike, and I lost weight and started liking the way I looked. In 2003 when I ran for president my weight blew back up. It was about two years ago that I finally decided to take all the weight off again, and so I cut the starches, the meat, and I even gave up chicken. I was a chicken junkie. I used to eat chicken three times a day. I have gone from a weight of 214 pounds to my current weight of 167 pounds.

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">G.W. <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Your full name is Alfred Charles Sharpton, but it actually should have been Al “Precocious Bravado” Sharpton. That heightened self-confidence can only come from the fact that you were a child prodigy. You have been a licensed, ordained minister from the age of 10. ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333">

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">A.S. <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family: "Georgia","serif";color:#333333">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 13 years old. I have never believed in limitations.

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">G.W. <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">Talk to me about this signature coiffe of yours, and have you ever considered a line of wigs? ''<span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#333333">

<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Georgia,serif;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">A.S. <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"; color:#333333">  <span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family: "Georgia","serif";color:#333333">In 1982, I was going to the White House with James Brown to meet with President Reagan to discuss a Martin Luther King holiday. So we took a Delta flight from Augusta to Atlanta to Washington, D.C., and while we were on the plane James Brown turned to me and said, “Reverend, I want you to start wearing your hair like mine, and I have arranged for you to have it done as soon as we land.” He said, “When we walk into the White House, I want everyone to see that you are like my son. And I want you to keep this hairstyle as long as I am alive.” I could never say no to James Brown. I never thought about a wig company, though.

<p class="MsoNormal">Read more: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/04/al-sharpton-george-wayne-q-and-a

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= =<span style="font-size:18pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(26,26,26);">Sharpton (and Others) Speak About James Brown = <p align="center" style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;text-align:center;line-height:13.5pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif";mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#1A1A1A">{C}

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#1A1A1A"><span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">James Brown's death yesterday, to many, <span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">was more than a loss of "the hardest working man in show business". Reverend Al Sharpton, who toured with him in the 70s and will <span style="color:rgb(102,102,102);border:1ptnonewindowtext;padding:0in;">lead his funeral services, says Brown was the father he never had. On top of that Brown also helped Sharpton become a civil rights leader, after Brown's son (a friend of Sharpton's) died in a car accident.

<p style="margin:0in0in0.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Helvetica","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#1A1A1A">Sharpton stated yesterday to a crowd at the National Action Network's House of Justice that Brown "knew that I came out of a one-parent home, and he became my father, and I became like his son." And who else would be responsible for Sharpton's unusual hair? Brown took him to his personal stylist prior to a trip to the White House to meet President Reagan. Sharpton stated, "When we got on the plane headed for Washington, he said, 'Don't change your hair like that until I die'."

<p class="MsoNormal">Read more: http://gothamist.com/2006/12/26/james_browns_de.php