The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership Author: Visit Amazon's Al Sharpton Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1936399474 | Format: PDF
The Rejected Stone: Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership Description
From Booklist
Sharpton has come a long way from street activist to political commentator on MSNBC. Does his high status hurt his image as a rabble-rouser? Sharpton argues that leadership requires adaptability and the wisdom to change when it’s appropriate. Interweaving life lessons learned from relationships with larger-than-life personalities, from Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to James Brown to Michael Jackson, Sharpton emphasizes the importance of persistence and hard work. Placing himself in the context of a liberal progressive, he nonetheless criticizes the degrading elements of hip-hop culture and laments high rates of illegitimate births among African Americans. But while promoting black success stories, he is short on analysis of the complexities that have led to self-destructive behavior among black youth. A staunch Obama supporter, in defense of criticism of the president by liberals, he notes that the president cannot read our minds and charges black leaders with responsibility to push a black agenda that the president cannot because he is the president of all Americans. In his own way, Sharpton is telling black leadership that it is time to step up. --Vernon Ford
About the Author
Reverend Al Sharpton is a political and social activist and one of the nation’s most-renowned civil rights leaders in the fight against injustice. He is the founder and President of the National Action Network (NAN), a not-for-profit civil rights organization headquartered in Harlem, New York, with over sixty chapters nationwide including a Washington, DC Bureau and regional offices from coast to coast. Reverend Al is currently the host of PoliticsNation, a daily television show on MSNBC; Keepin’ It Real, a nationally syndicated radio show; and House of Justice, a weekly Saturday broadcast from NAN’s Harlem Headquarters.
- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Cash Money Content (October 8, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1936399474
- ISBN-13: 978-1936399475
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
For someone who, up until the spring of this year, only remember Rev Al fr his Tawana Brawley years, this book, literally blew my mind away. 100% percent. I stopped listening and watching anything that talked about him or featured him. He belonged in the category called 'Demagogue', the quintessential example. I must admit, it is more accurate to say I despised this man who wore the most godawful clothes, with the most godawful hair, said the most godawful things on TV and then, to top it all off, so atrociously obese!! He repulsed my 20-something, Filipino-American immigrant eyes. He was, I strongly felt, what's wrong with this supposedly great nation.
Fast forward in time. I am in my late 40's and end up attending a Saturday Rally of his at National Action Network in Harlem (very, very long story on how I ended up there). Imagine my shock to listen to and find a man who is nowhere even close, not even in the same galaxy, as what I had thought of him to be. Quite the opposite. His words that Saturday morning inspired, challenged and exemplified all that being a selfless servant leader is. I could tell, though I had no evidence of it at the time, this was NOT lip service. It can only be spoken from such conviction and passion, and felt by another powerfully, by someone who lives in the trenches of it.
Here, in this book, for one quite ignorant of him, hadn't followed him, don't watch him in anything whatsoever, I have the documentation on why I felt why I felt then; on how one such as he can speak, move and have the place at the table that he has. It is to the benefit of those at the table that he chooses to be there. It is a benefit to everyone that he sits at the table for all of us. YES, THIS IS A DRAMATIC TURN OF PERSPECTIVE FOR ME.
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