Al Sharpton famous quotes

I’ve never seen a prosecutor hold a press conference to discredit the victim,
-- Al Sharpton

#Victim #Conferences #Prosecutor

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Running #Thinking #Long

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

#Son #Crow #Defeated

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Party #People #Assumption

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

#Shining #Never Quit #Sun

If a cop sees a person running out of a store with a gun he's seeing a crime. He's not seeing a person standing.
-- Al Sharpton

#Running #Gun #Cop

If Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.
-- Al Sharpton

#House #Want #Pins

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

#Thinking #Color #People

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

#Politics #Today #Tomorrow

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

#Boycott

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

#Committed

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Healing #People #Rooms

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Mother #Brooklyn #Tables

I think that you can't choose leadership. You have to deal with the leadership that the people respond to.
-- Al Sharpton

#Thinking #People #Deals

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

#Giving Up #Giving #Too Much

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

#Needs #Enough #Boycott

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

#Dream #White #House

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Sacrifice #Thinking #People

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Philosophy #Pyramids #White

People working at the arenas are not just depending on one or two concerts. I think it gives a symbolic boost, as well as those shows do bring down some monetary investments in the city.
-- Al Sharpton

#Thinking #Cities #Two

I have the right to express myself. Once we get through expressing, do we really move forward in society.
-- Al Sharpton

#Moving #Moving Forward

As I ran for president, I hoped that one child would come out of the ghetto like I did, could look at me walk across the stage with governors and senators and know they didn't have to be a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they didn't have to be a gangster. They could stand up from a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for president of the United States.
-- Al Sharpton

#Running #Children #Ghetto

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

#School #Mean #President

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

#Grandma #Rifles #Care

Don't talk to us like we ignint!
-- Al Sharpton

I do believe that the party has a bunch of elephants running around in donkey clothes.
-- Al Sharpton

#Running #Party #Believe

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

#Gay #Constitution #Adultery

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

#Commitment #Giving #Way

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Believe #Doe #Racist

Evangelicals catapulted George W. Bush back to the White House.
-- Al Sharpton

#White #House

I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan.
-- Al Sharpton

#Holiday #Black #Goes On

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Fighting #Iraq #America

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

#Guy #Bills #Kind

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

#Kings #Vision #Drs

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

#Thinking #Order #Ministry

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

#Age #Church #Baptists

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

#Government #Giving #Needs

James Brown lives, as long as someone steps out of their body and dances uncontrollably.
-- Al Sharpton

#Dance #Long #Body

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Country #America #Patriotism

Dr. King's general principles are universal. But the things he confronted took place in another era.
-- Al Sharpton

#Kings #Principles #Drs

We're not willing to give black leaders second chances because, in most cases, we're not willing to give them first chances.
-- Al Sharpton

#Second Chance #Giving #Leader

Dr. King used Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and to passive resistance.
-- Al Sharpton

#Kings #Commitment #Atheism

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

#Country #Real #Needs

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Loss #Media #Black

What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want it? Now.
-- Al Sharpton

#Want #Cop

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

#Passion #Wife #Black

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

#Christian #Presidential #Campaigns

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

#White

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Iowa #Dean #Wanted

What’s wrong with denouncing white interlopers?
-- Al Sharpton

#White

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Children #Hate #Names

I always go by instinct and then wrestle with where by instinct brought me.
-- Al Sharpton

#Instinct

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

#Police #Brutality #Police Brutality

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
-- Al Sharpton

#Couple #Gay #Views

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

#Patriot #Truest

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

#Done #Way #Activist

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

#Play #Too Much #Way

Better to die of something than to die in old age of nothing.
-- Al Sharpton

#Age #Purpose #Old Age

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Dream #Opportunity #America

How do you make things fair?
-- Al Sharpton

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

#Action #Program #Volume

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

#Education #Country #Government

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Long #Racism #Slavery

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

#Country #Cities #Groups

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Mother #Father #Mean

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

#New York #Cities #Police

Somebody had to bring the truth to the doorstep of this president.
-- Al Sharpton

#President

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

#Philosophy #People #Fiction

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.
-- Al Sharpton

#Moral #Courageous #Obligation