Enter
Q&A
DON’T KNOW IF I WOULD have brought Al Sharpton on to do
a show!” Rev. Al Sharpton himself admitted this fall at the oneyear anniversary party of his MSNBC nightly program, PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, according to the New York Observer.
His civil rights accomplishments over the past four decades
have at times been overshadowed by his public missteps and
inflammatory rhetoric, but this election cycle a more focused,
slimmer Sharpton, 58, has brought even his adversaries — like
Newt Gingrich — on his show for thoughtful debate. Huffington
spoke with him about what gets him out of bed each day, including voter suppression attempts, marriage equality and the elusive notion of a post-racial America. — Leigh Owens
Why in 2012 are we still having to fight
for the right to vote? I think that it is
something that is unbelievable, but
at the same time we realistically
have to deal with. There are forces
that never wanted to see women,
blacks and Latinos vote, and I
think that we’re seeing a 21st-century version of how they intend to
at least minimize that vote... This
is one of the real fights of our time,
to maintain our right to vote.
We’re in post-racial America because we
have a black president, right? That’s
right. And to me, the sad part is,
not only has a lot of White America bought into we’re in post-racial
America, a lot of Black and Latino
America has bought into it. And
therefore, with guys like me that
are out there, people say, “Oh
they’re just causing trouble.” No,
we’re about to lose it all.
What is it going to take to awaken
people? As people hear it, that’s
one of the reasons why I work
18-hour days and do radio, tv and
NAN [National Action Network,
his nonprofit civil rights organization]. People hear it, they wake
up. A lot of it is communicating.
For example, we did the voter
ID march reenacting the Selma
to Montgomery march in March
of this year. When I got back to
New York, after we did 10 days
doing the march and had a big
rally in Montgomery really making the voter ID thing a national
issue. When I got back to New
York, I got a call from Ben Crump
HUFFINGTON
11.04.12