Announcing Bid for Presidency, Sharpton Assails Traditional Parties

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who announced on Saturday that he will vie for the presidency in 2004, decried both major political parties in a speech on Monday sponsored by Harvard Law School (HLS).

Even though he is seeking a nomination from the Democrats, Sharpton criticized current Democratic leadership, including the party’s other presidential contenders. He said other potential Democratic candidates have allied too closely with the Republican party in the past.

“You can’t have a political debate when you agree with the person you’re debating,” he said. “Their voting records say that they sided with the Republicans, even with the tax cuts.”

In the culmination of his three-day trip to Boston, Sharpton spoke to a small but enthusiastic audience of about 100 at the Christian Life Center of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cambridge.

Senate Democrats running or considering a presidential bid include John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). And the party’s Senate leader, Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), announced that he would not be seeking nomination yesterday.

On Monday, Sharpton criticized Daschle’s response to Republican leader Trent Lott’så (R-Miss.) comments at a birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).

Sharpton called Daschle’s acceptance of Lott’s subsequent apology “a morally cowardly act.”

Sharpton also said party leaders were slow to condemn Lott’s comments.

“Everyone else was silent and waiting on public opinion, but morality does not go by polls,” he said.

If Lott had his way, Sharpton added, “Condoleezza Rice would still be sitting at the back of the bus and Colin Powell would have been sleeping in segregated barracks.”

The activist and civil rights leader urged Senate Democrats to call for Lott’s censure when the 108th Congress convened yesterday.

“If there is a real level of moral and political courage, then when the Senate is sworn in, the Democratic senators, led by Daschle, ought to call for a vote of censure on Trent Lott,” he said.

Democrats did not take any such action yesterday.

Sharpton also criticized Edwards in his speech.

“Edwards got rich fighting for regular people at exorbitant rates. I fought for regular people and went to jail and got sued,” Sharpton said, referring to the nearly three months he spent in prison for protesting U.S. naval bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Nor did Sharpton spare the Republicans in his speech Monday.

He accused President Bush and the Republican party of being “inflicted with political lyin’-gitis.”

“These are the only people I’ve seen using a shovel instead of a rope to get out of a hole,” he quipped.

Sharpton specifically criticized Bush’s role in the possible conflict with Iraq, accusing him of rushing into pre-emptive attack in order to gain control of Iraq’s oil reserves.

“We found out that North Korea had weapons and that they lied to us about it, but Bush wants to talk civilized with them,” he said. “Maybe it’s not about weapons. Maybe it’s about oil.”

Sharpton said he opposes a war because the U.S. government has not provided evidence of Iraqis weapons of mass destruction.

“Bush is playing three-card motley with these weapons,” he said. “We’ve got cameras that could shoot the other side of Jupiter, but they can’t show us one photograph of a weapon in Iraq.”

Sharpton also said that the current Republican leadership only serves to disenfranchise African-Americans, despite the fact that two blacks, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, hold Cabinet positions.

“There is a difference between black leadership and leading blacks,” he said. “They used to buy them and now they run with them.”

He referenced the comments of legendary musician and activist Harry Belafonte, who, in a recent public appearance, equated Powell’s political position with that of a slave in the house of his master.

“Bush says that civil rights is giving two blacks a big job,” Sharpton aid. “How can he challenge what Harry Belafonte said in Ebonics when he said the same thing in Washingtonian, Texan English?”

Sharpton said the race for the presidency has traditionally been composed of white, male millionaires. His presence in the upcoming race is important, Sharpton said, because he can better understand the plight of average Americans.

“They studied welfare, but I grew up on welfare,” he said.

Sharpton said that he would be the voice of the disenfranchised—a group he later identified as including racial minorities, women and members of the working class.

“Somebody has to stand up for the real Americans and they’re not just black or Latino or white,” he said.

—Staff writer Ebonie D. Hazle can be reached at hazle@fas.harvard.edu.