Read Online The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership by Al Sharpton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Al Sharpton
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business, about the black community, about the music industry, and I met huge stars in just about every field imaginable.
In fact, James was the one who told me to shorten my name to Al. Up to that point, I was known as Alfred Sharpton.
“Reverend,” he said to me one day (he always called me Reverend). “Cut it to Al. You don’t need four bars [as in ‘Al-fred Sharp-ton’]. Just Al Sharpton. Alfred’s too much.”
If James Brown tells you to shorten your name for the aural benefits, you do it. From that day forward, I was Al Sharpton.
In a profile somebody wrote on me years back, the writer recounted how I was kind of adopted by James Brown when I was eighteen, after his son Teddy died in a car crash. He said this period with Brown defined me, because that’s where I gotmy style and where I learned to deal with the grass roots—the people with backgrounds similar to James’s, the marginalized and the dispossessed. But I don’t think that’s completely accurate. What really defined me during that time was my decision to leave James Brown.
During the year and a half that I stayed with James, I was thrown smack into the middle of a teenager’s dream: nights in Vegas, parties in Hollywood, shows in London. I was there when he left to perform before the 1974 Ali-Foreman fight, the famous “Rumble in the Jungle.” I was nineteen, and I was a player at some of the most intoxicating cultural events of our time. Can you imagine? He was one of the biggest figures in the entertainment industry, and I was his right hand. What more could a kid ask for?
But I wasn’t happy. I knew this was not what God intended for me, to be a road manager and assistant for James Brown. There were bigger things in store for me, a path that I needed to begin to walk. That’s why I say don’t get hypnotized by the shiny objects, the so-called bling. It would have been easy for me to stick around and live large, but it didn’t feed my spirit. So I left James and went back to my mother’s place in Brownsville, Brooklyn. James couldn’t believe it.
“Oh, he’ll be back,” James told the people around him. “He can’t make a living.”
I wasn’t exactly certain what my purpose was in life, but I knew following James around wasn’t it. I dedicated myself to building my National Youth Movement. There were no guarantees, but it’s what I had to do.
When I counsel up-and-coming young leaders, I try to get them to practice consequential thinking: If I do this, what is the consequence? It’s something my best friend, Dwight McKee, has been saying in my ear for decades. I tell them the two things you have to be most careful of are money and sex. Those are the twin evils, the flagrant, tantalizing mistakes that will bring the media firestorm every time. When you fall in those two areas, everyone’s coming after you. I’ve made mistakes with money—not really doing anything wrong or egregious but not being obsessively careful. I got lax with my recordkeeping and accounting, and the government came along and accused me of unpaid taxes in amounts that exceeded a million dollars. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, you can’t say, “To hell with them!” and walk away. The Bible tells us to avoid even the appearance of wrong, so even if you didn’t do the things you are being accused of, it becomes a huge distraction.
Huge distractions also come in the form of sex scandals. This is obviously the most lethal trap in public life, the area where a monklike discipline is sometimes required. Yeah, that young lady looks great, but is she worth it? Is it worth you not being able to have the moral authority to stand up and raise issues? What’s more important to you, a weekend in Bimini with a young woman or standing up and changing the course of history?
This is a lesson many men and women can relate to: the need for personal discipline when it comes to pleasures of the flesh. It can happen so quickly—a kind smile and a batting
In fact, James was the one who told me to shorten my name to Al. Up to that point, I was known as Alfred Sharpton.
“Reverend,” he said to me one day (he always called me Reverend). “Cut it to Al. You don’t need four bars [as in ‘Al-fred Sharp-ton’]. Just Al Sharpton. Alfred’s too much.”
If James Brown tells you to shorten your name for the aural benefits, you do it. From that day forward, I was Al Sharpton.
In a profile somebody wrote on me years back, the writer recounted how I was kind of adopted by James Brown when I was eighteen, after his son Teddy died in a car crash. He said this period with Brown defined me, because that’s where I gotmy style and where I learned to deal with the grass roots—the people with backgrounds similar to James’s, the marginalized and the dispossessed. But I don’t think that’s completely accurate. What really defined me during that time was my decision to leave James Brown.
During the year and a half that I stayed with James, I was thrown smack into the middle of a teenager’s dream: nights in Vegas, parties in Hollywood, shows in London. I was there when he left to perform before the 1974 Ali-Foreman fight, the famous “Rumble in the Jungle.” I was nineteen, and I was a player at some of the most intoxicating cultural events of our time. Can you imagine? He was one of the biggest figures in the entertainment industry, and I was his right hand. What more could a kid ask for?
But I wasn’t happy. I knew this was not what God intended for me, to be a road manager and assistant for James Brown. There were bigger things in store for me, a path that I needed to begin to walk. That’s why I say don’t get hypnotized by the shiny objects, the so-called bling. It would have been easy for me to stick around and live large, but it didn’t feed my spirit. So I left James and went back to my mother’s place in Brownsville, Brooklyn. James couldn’t believe it.
“Oh, he’ll be back,” James told the people around him. “He can’t make a living.”
I wasn’t exactly certain what my purpose was in life, but I knew following James around wasn’t it. I dedicated myself to building my National Youth Movement. There were no guarantees, but it’s what I had to do.
When I counsel up-and-coming young leaders, I try to get them to practice consequential thinking: If I do this, what is the consequence? It’s something my best friend, Dwight McKee, has been saying in my ear for decades. I tell them the two things you have to be most careful of are money and sex. Those are the twin evils, the flagrant, tantalizing mistakes that will bring the media firestorm every time. When you fall in those two areas, everyone’s coming after you. I’ve made mistakes with money—not really doing anything wrong or egregious but not being obsessively careful. I got lax with my recordkeeping and accounting, and the government came along and accused me of unpaid taxes in amounts that exceeded a million dollars. Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, you can’t say, “To hell with them!” and walk away. The Bible tells us to avoid even the appearance of wrong, so even if you didn’t do the things you are being accused of, it becomes a huge distraction.
Huge distractions also come in the form of sex scandals. This is obviously the most lethal trap in public life, the area where a monklike discipline is sometimes required. Yeah, that young lady looks great, but is she worth it? Is it worth you not being able to have the moral authority to stand up and raise issues? What’s more important to you, a weekend in Bimini with a young woman or standing up and changing the course of history?
This is a lesson many men and women can relate to: the need for personal discipline when it comes to pleasures of the flesh. It can happen so quickly—a kind smile and a batting
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