Al Sharpton

Sharpton married recording artist Marsha Tinsley in his twenties, though the marriage lasted less than a year. In 1971, while touring with James Brown, he met Kathy Jordan, who was working as a backing singer. The couple married in 1980 and had two daughters, Dominique and Ashley. Sharpton and Jordan separated in 2004, and Sharpton officially filed for divorce in 2021. He later began a relationship with personal stylist Aisha McShaw.

Over the course of his career, Sharpton underwent a significant physical transformation. After once weighing 305 pounds, he undertook a four-year weight-loss regimen that reduced his weight by 176 pounds. He achieved the reduction without surgery through a strict combination of portion control, healthier nutrition, and routine exercise.

Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born on October 3, 1954, in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Preaching from early childhood, he delivered his first sermon at age four, was ordained as a Pentecostal minister by Bishop F. D. Washington at age nine or ten, and toured with renowned gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Later in life, in 1994, he was re-baptized as a Baptist by Reverend William Augustus Jones.

During his teenage years, Sharpton became involved in the civil rights movement under the mentorship of Reverend Jesse Jackson. In 1969, Jackson appointed him youth director of the New York branch of Operation Breadbasket, an economic initiative established by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School and attended Brooklyn College for two years before leaving in 1975 to focus full-time on activism.

Between 1973 and 1980, Sharpton served as tour manager for singer James Brown, whom he regarded as a second father. Brown encouraged him to adopt the name Al instead of Alfred and influenced his dramatic speaking and organizing style, teaching him how to use high-visibility tactics to draw public attention to social causes.

Sharpton established the National Youth Movement in 1971 and later founded the National Action Network in 1991 to promote voting rights, provide services to low-income communities, and support minority-owned businesses. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he organized major marches responding to incidents of racial violence and police misconduct in New York City, including the 1986 death of Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, the 1989 murder of Yusef Hawkins in Bensonhurst, and the 1999 police shooting of Amadou Diallo.

His activism frequently placed him in danger. During a January 1991 protest march in Bensonhurst, Sharpton was stabbed in the chest by Michael Riccardi. He recovered following surgery and later asked the court for leniency during his attacker's sentencing. Sharpton was also jailed for 90 days in 2001 after participating in civil disobedience against United States Navy bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, during which he held a 43-day hunger strike.

In subsequent decades, Sharpton continued leading national responses to major civil rights cases. He organized rallies and delivered eulogies following the deaths of Trayvon Martin in 2012, Eric Garner in 2014, George Floyd in 2020, and Tyre Nichols in 2023, repeatedly calling for federal civil rights investigations and comprehensive police reform legislation.

Sharpton has mounted multiple campaigns for elected office as a member of the Democratic Party. He ran for the United States Senate from New York in 1988, 1992, and 1994, using his candidacies to draw focus to civil rights issues and progressive policies. In 1997, he ran for Mayor of New York City, finishing second in the Democratic primary.

In 2004, Sharpton sought the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. While he did not secure the nomination, his campaign provided him with a prominent national platform during primary debates and at the Democratic National Convention.

Expanding into broadcast media, Sharpton launched the nationally syndicated radio program Keepin' It Real with Al Sharpton in 2006. In August 2011, he became the host of MSNBC's political analysis program PoliticsNation, while also appearing as a regular panelist and contributor on network news shows.

Sharpton has authored and co-authored several books on his life and American politics. His publications include his 1996 autobiography Go and Tell Pharaoh, written with Anthony Walton, followed by Al on America in 2002, The Rejected Stone in 2013, and Rise Up: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads in 2020.