A limited series centered on civil-rights and social-justice activist Al Sharpton will adapt the notorious figure’s recent Esquire profile, which neglected to mention his past history with antisemitism.
Pulitzer Prize winner Mitchell S. Jackson published the flattering profile, “The Redemption of Al Sharpton,” in February after following Sharpton across the country last summer “to find out why he keeps going, what he’s still doing, and where his place in history will be,” Jackson wrote. The lengthy article frames Sharpton as a notable yet divisive leader: “To one America, he has long been a beacon of the civil-rights movement. . . . To another, he was a loudmouth in a tracksuit, surrounded by controversy and shady friends.”
While attempting to reconcile the two competing versions of the Baptist minister, the writer overlooks Sharpton’s past antisemitic remarks and actions in the process.
In August 1991, Sharpton played a key role in inciting violence in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, after a Jewish driver ran over a seven-year-old black boy named Gavin Cato in the neighborhood. The incident led to a three-day race riot between black and Jewish residents; Jewish rabbinical student Yankel Rosenbaum died from a stab wound. Sharpton led a march in which rioters carried antisemitic signs and chanted, “No Justice, No Peace!” and “Death to the Jews!”
He also delivered an incendiary eulogy at Cato’s funeral, where he accused Jews of being responsible for apartheid in South Africa.
“The world will tell us he was killed by accident. Yes, it was a social accident,” Sharpton said of Cato’s death. “It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights.”
“Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights,” he added, referring to Jewish jewelers. “The issue is not anti-Semitism; the issue is apartheid. . . . All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise, no meetings, no kaffe klatsch, no skinnin’ and grinnin.’ Pay for your deeds.”
In 1995, Sharpton called a Jewish store owner in Harlem a “white interloper” after the owner got into a rent dispute with a black record-store owner. The Jewish tenant’s rent was raised by a black Pentecostal church, which, in turn, led him to raise the rent on his black South-African subtenant.
Sharpton and his National Action Network then led protests over the course of several weeks, ending with an armed demonstrator burning down the Jewish-owned Freddy’s Fashion Mart. The attack claimed the lives of seven employees, and the gunman shot himself.
The civil-rights figure’s “white interloper” and “diamond merchants” remarks were both cited in one-time Republican congressman Joe Scarborough’s 2000 resolution, “Condemning the racist and anti-Semitic views of the Reverend Al Sharpton.” Scarborough now hosts his own MSNBC show, on which Sharpton has frequently been invited as a guest.
The Esquire profile mentions neither of these incidents nor Sharpton’s involvement in them, though it does note the court case that launched his public-service career.
In 1987, a 15-year-old black girl named Tawana Brawley, with the advice of Sharpton and two lawyers, wrongly accused four white men, including New York prosecutor Steven Pagones, of abducting and raping her. The accusations turned out to be false, and Pagones was cleared of any wrongdoing, as determined by a grand jury the following year.
Prior to the court’s decision, Sharpton alleged Pagones raped Brawley and was a racist. This prompted the former assistant district attorney to sue Brawley’s legal adviser a decade later for ruining his career. Pagones ultimately won the defamation lawsuit in 1998, but Sharpton refused to pay the $65,000 in damages himself. Three years later, Sharpton’s supporters paid the remaining debt. Sharpton never apologized to Pagones.
Despite his questionable statements and actions, Sharpton rose to national prominence and ran for the Democratic Party several times in the past three decades, albeit unsuccessfully. He ran as a Democrat for U.S. senator of New York in 1988, 1992, and 1994; mayor of New York City in 1997; and president in 2004.
The limited series about Sharpton is in the works at ABC Signature, the network’s flagship production arm, according to Deadline. Anthony Anderson, best known for his leading role in the television series Black-ish, is expected to star as Sharpton and executive produce the upcoming show, which was announced at a time of surging antisemitism across the U.S.