Quotes By Al Sharpton

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

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

The boxing world is full of all kinds of corruption.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The United States has got to adopt a policy of befriending and creating allies around the world.

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

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

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

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

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

I was there during the first elections in South Africa. I watched them take down the apartheid flag and raise the new flag.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.