9781422277751

me on a box because I was too small for the pulpit and no one could see me.” At the age of 9 or 10, Sharpton was licensed and ordained as a Pentecostal minister by Bishop Washington. Sharpton recalled: I learned an awful lot from Bishop Washington. I learned how to preach, I learned how to love and respect books, I learned how to dress, I learned the persona of the black preacher, who is part religious leader, part social leader, part social worker, part entertainer. Through imitating people you admire, you learn things you don’t come to understand until much later; you just do it. After Washington died in the late 1980s, Sharpton became a Baptist; when he was re-baptized by the Reverend William Jones at Bethany Baptist Church in 1994, he became a Baptist minister.

An aerial view of the Borough of Queens, New York, showing geometrically arranged and densely packed buildings and a multi-lane super highway. During the 1950s and early 1960s, when Sharpton was growing up in Queens, urban renewal projects reshaped the landscape of New York City, affecting many African-American neighborhoods.

CH A P T E R 1 : A LwAy S Ou T F R ON T

1 1