Rev. Al Sharpton Delivers History Lesson for Brooklyn and Beyond at Antioch

By Mary Alice Miller
The African American Clergy and Elected Officials organization hosted Rev. Al Sharpton at its first meeting of 2025. Rev. Sharpton brought a much-needed message to the first AACEO meeting after Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the White House.

Rev. Sharpton began his message with acknowledgment of Rev. Dr. Robert Waterman, president of AACEO. “We should not take for granted the unusual and unique blessing that we have in our own Robert Waterman,” said Sharpton. “To be able to convene this on a monthly basis and have people with the influence and some with power come together and become accountable is something we should not take for granted.”

Rev. Sharpton recalled the tensions around the building of Downstate Medical Center in the 1960s. Sharpton named George Lawrence, William Augustus Jones, Samuel Gray, and Gardner C. Taylor, who he called “giants in the ministry in Brooklyn.” “They said you couldn’t build Downstate unless you hired some Blacks at the construction site.”

Those and other local pastors went as a group and sat down on the site to be arrested to stop the construction of Downstate until they hired black contractors. Bishop Washington, who mentored Sharpton as a boy preacher, joined the group as one of the few COGIC preachers who would do that. But the other person that was there, that was uncharacteristic, was Malcolm X.

“There was a time that we did not find it impossible to come across our ideological, religious, and denominational lines because we understood some things benefitted all of us,” said Sharpton. “So when people see what we did later in life, it is because we grew up watching what to do.”

Sharpton explained, “One of the things that they had done so well is that they separated our generations coming from the generations before it. If they can cut you off from your background, from your history, then you won’t know what worked and what didn’t work because they’ve got you thinking history started with you.”

Sharpton spoke of how African Americans were divided to perpetrate the chattel slavery system. “They sent your daddy to Georgia, mama to Alabama, sister to Mississippi. Your name is not Kunta Kinte anymore. It is Tobe,” Sharpton said. “You come from centuries of Tobes because they forgot who they were. 246 years of slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow, all of that works as long as we were divided.”

The constant in this country was working us without wages 157 years before 1776 and the formation of the Constitution 246 years after.
Referencing Lincoln, the Civil War, and the Emancipation Proclamation, Sharpton said, “January 1, 1863, slaves were allowed to walk off the plantation.

You are free now. But you have no money because you worked 246 years and never got paid. You have no education because it was against the law for you to read and write. You have no family because they broke up your family and sold them everywhere.”

Then Sharpton made his point: “We had no social structure. The only thing we had was our ability to gather together. That was the birth of the Black church. Everything we have started and came out of the Black church,” said Sharpton.

He continued, “The church was the first and only thing we owned in the United States. If they can cut us off from the black church, they cut us off from the foundation. Our foundation was the Black church. Black colleges started in the Black church. Black businesses started in the Black church. Politics started in the Black church. And we were able to convene and build from there.”

From Adam Clayton Powell to the NAACP and Martin Luther King and their efforts on behalf of Black people, Sharpton said, “We have become the recipients of winners and forgot how we won. We have become the inheritors of things that we don’t understand what we inherited.”

Issuing a warning about separating our children from the Black church and their elders that would ultimately strip away any self-pride and self-recognition, Sharpton said that James Brown (a mentor to Sharpton) told him, “When you were growing up, we gave you pride. The reason y’all fought to own things and operate things is we gave you pride. All I can hear is some of these rappers now calling us niggas and hoes and bitches.” Brown asked Sharpton, “What happened to you all?”

“If they can change a culture, they can change your perspective,” said Sharpton. “We have allowed them to invade our culture, our music by breaking down our churches and breaking down the culture.

Now we are mocking black excellence and seeing how decadent we can be. And our children have no role models. When I was growing up in Brownsville on welfare I thought I could be something. Because my stars and my heroes were something. But now what are they looking up to?”

Sharpton then said, “And in the middle of that, in the middle of the disarray comes a Donald Trump. Trump is a result of the breakdown of this country.”
Sharpton said two things are going to happen on January 20, 2025. Trump is getting sworn in as the 47th president. And on the other side of Washington, DC Sharpton will rally at Metropolitan AME church. “We are going to keep Dr. King’s dream alive because that’s Martin Luther King Day,” he said. “What I am calling for is forming a national committee to study the companies that want to stop DEI, diversity equity and inclusion.

Those that don’t want diversity in their company should not have diversity in their consumer power. If you don’t want us working there under diversity, then we don’t need to shop with you. One of the things we have got to do is organize around economic issues.”

Other speakers at the AACEO meeting were Secretary of State Walter Mosley, NYC Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviler-Ramos, Assistant Chief Commanding Officer for Patrol Borough Brooklyn North Scott Henderson, Chief Business Diversity Officer for the Mayor’s Office of M/WBEs Michael Garner, and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.