01-03-02
By Herb Boyd
TBWT, National Editor

New York--From being cooped up in a cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a luxurious suite at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the intrepid Rev. Al Sharpton may have been a target of right wing detractors, but he was a moving one.  

Sharpton recalled some of his peregrinations last Saturday at the National Action Network.  "I
was on the road a lot this year and in jail for 90 days, but the organization stepped up and kept things going.  It takes a team to make it possible for us to have a banner year," he said.
He acknowledged his family and some of those who have been instrumental in the organization's growth and expansion to 17 branches around the country.  

Dedrick Muhammad, Marcia Fitzgerald, Woody Henderson, Heru Plunkett, Ozzie Thompson, J.D. Livingstone, Kelvin Alexander, Margie Harris-Smikle, Cynthia Davis, C. Eugene Cooper, and Michael Hardy were a few members of his staff and committees who were present to take a bow. "I could not have done it without your dedication," he added.

Right at the top of 2001, Sharpton was in the nation's capital convening a "shadow inauguration" to protest the "hijacking of a presidential election." It was a cold and chilly day, but hundreds joined the minister as he assailed the incoming Bush administration
"Just because you (Bush) may turn back your clock," Sharpton said in a barrage of words,
"doesn't mean you have the right time." 

Sharpton certainly had time to commemorate the murder of Amadou Diallo and to hear both sides in the privatization squabble over several public schools.  Later, the NAN would vote against the measure and the Edison plan, deeming it "the illusion of a quick fix." And there would be no quick fix "money" solution to the lawsuit filed by Abner Louima. "It's more than the amount money they are offering," Sharpton said about settlement made between the police-sodomized Louima and the city.  "It's about bringing about systemic changes in how the police deals with the Black community and other minorities."

In the spring Sharpton announced plans to run for the White House, which  gave him additional cache to the four candidates seeking to be mayor of New York City.  They needed his endorsement.  

Within hours after announcing his presidential bid, Sharpton was in Vieques and on his way to prison for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the Puerto Rican island.  As one of the "Vieques Four" (Adolfo Carrion, Jose Rivera, and Roberto Ramirez), he would receive a 90-day sentence. On August 17, Sharpton was released and immediately leaped back into the political fray endorsing Fernando Ferrer for mayor.

Then came Sept. 11.   A few days after the terrorist attack, Sharpton led a delegation of pastors to ground zero.  "It is time to comfort the families who have suffered during this great tragedy," he said. When Mark Green played the race card and defeated Ferrer, Sharpton was outraged.  But there was little time for fuming-a trip to the Middle East was planned and soon the peripatetic minister was airborne to Israel.  While in Israel, he met with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO leader Yasir Arafat.  Sharpton advised: "You cannot be on one side or the other," he explained to the press.  "Innocent citizens are dying on both sides, and we are merely seeking to help bring about a dialogue and end the violence."

By the end of November Sharpton was again in motion with quick visits to NAN chapters as far west as Las Vegas, then to Atlanta where he was a featured speaker at the State of Black World Conference, and then to Dominican Republic to bring words of condolences to families who lost loved ones and relatives in the crash of American Airlines flight 587.

At NAN's tenth anniversary celebration, in which the Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered the keynote address, Sharpton promised that 2002 would be just as eventful and fulfilling as 2001.  "What are we going to do in 2002?" he asked and then answered.  "We will continue to be on the front line in the struggle to uphold our civil rights and civil liberties," he said.
"I think he had a pretty good year," said Nelson Farmer, a NAN member since 1994 when he
arrived in the city from North Carolina.  "And next year promises to be even better for Sharpton and NAN.  Already he's been to Bloomberg's inaugural.  That's certainly a hopeful sign."