No matter what your opinion is of the Reverend Al Sharpton, this book will change your thinking. His is the most significant, vibrant voice of the African American community, yet his story is not known - only caricatures and stereotypes that cannot begin to communicate the extraordinary drama of his life, nor the passion and intelligence Sharpton brings to the cause to which he has dedicated his life.

As a young boy Sharpton lived in a stable, middle-class neighborhood, but a devastating personal tragedy sundered the family, and his mother was forced to move with the children to the Brooklyn projects. At the age of four, Sharpton delivered his first sermon to a church audience of 900; he would go on to be ordained as a Pentecostal minister at the age of ten.

As a teenager he worked on community projects with Jesse Jackson and other civil rights leaders, then became promoter for the godfather of soul, James Brown. He grew up in a world of protest marches and seedy nightclubs, deeply religious values and flamboyant show business legends.

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The Bernhard Goetz subway incident in the early 1980s, in which New Yorkers applauded a white man shooting three unarmed teenagers, convinced him that inner city blacks had no voice in the power structure, and he began his life as an activist. From Howard Beach to the notorious Tawana Brawley case to Yusuf Hawkins's murder, Sharpton has been a constant and controversial advocate for the rights of African Americans.

Since being stabbed in 1991, Sharpton has reevaluated his tactics - though not his goals - and has twice run for the U.S. Senate, garnering 14 percent, then 26 percent of the vote in his two runs.