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The strange rise of a hatemonger - the growing power of Al Sharpton in NewYork City politics
National Review, March 20, 2000 by Jay Nordlinger
The supposedly sobered Sharpton quickly jumped into the electoral realm, running for the Senate in 1992 against a field he described as "recycled white trash." He finished third out of four Democrats, beating Elizabeth Holtzman, the renowned former congresswoman. Two years later, he again ran for the Senate, taking 26 percent of the vote from the incumbent, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. His most striking political showing came in 1997, when he ran for mayor. He garnered a full 32 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, almost forcing a runoff with the winner, Ruth Messinger (who went on to be defeated by Giuliani).All the while, Sharpton's power and influence-the sense of his legitimacy-grew. Once he had referred to Dinkins as "that nigger whore turning tricks in City Hall." By 1993, however, Dinkins could say, "I'm the mayor of New York, but Sharpton is the leader. If we didn't have an Al Sharpton, we would have to create one. Imagine if Al wasn't around. What would have happened to victims? Who would have raised our issues? Thank God for Martin [Luther King], thank God for Adam [Clayton Powell], thank God for Al." The torch had effectively been passed.
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But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy's Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner-no, worse: a Jewish one-was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away, Sharpton charged that "there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner-Sharpton's "white interloper"-"We're going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it." Three months later, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, stormed Freddy's with a pistol, screaming, "It's on now: All blacks out!" In addition to shooting, he burned the place down. Eight people died. Sharpton now faced a PR problem, a bump on his road to full respectability. In a manner both Sharptonian and Clintonian, he denied having even spoken at a rally at all. When tapes surfaced, he asked, "What's wrong with denouncing white interlopers?" Eventually, he decided to apologize-but only for saying "white," not "interloper."
SHAME AND HONOR
Most people, it seems-or at least most elites-have made a kind of peace with Sharpton. Two years ago, former mayor Ed Koch appeared on a cooking show with The Rev-just a pair of twinkle-eyed, cuddly New York pols, wearing aprons. But the Old Sharpton never fails to spring back. Around the time he was cooking with Koch, Sharpton was haranguing a Harlem crowd with Khalid Abdul Muhammad, the country's foremost specialist in Hitlerian rhetoric. (Free sample: "Who's pimping the world? The hairy hands of the Zionist in the world.") Pressed slightly on Muhammad, Sharpton said, "I have no problem with Khalid. My problem is Giuliani. It's not Khalid who is talking hate; it's Rudy Giuliani." As far as Sharpton was concerned, Muhammad was "an articulate and courageous brother."
