By Clarice Burger
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptist minister, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rights organization. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts a weekday radio talk show, Keepin’ It Real, which is nationally syndicated by Urban One, and he is a political analyst and weekend host for MSNBC, hosting PoliticsNation.
Sharpton is known for making various controversial and incendiary comments over his career. He has been accused of making antisemitic and racially insensitive remarks as well as inciting incidents of violence. In 1987, he was highly active in publicizing the Tawana Brawley rape allegations in the media; the allegation was later proved to be false.
Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. was born in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, to Ada (née Richards) and Alfred Charles Sharpton Sr. Sharpton has Cherokee roots. He preached his first sermon at the age of four and toured with gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.
In 1963, Sharpton’s father left his wife to have a relationship with Sharpton’s half-sister. Ada took a job as a maid, but her income was so low that the family qualified for welfare and had to move from middle class Hollis, Queens, to the public housing projects in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Sharpton graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, and attended Brooklyn College, dropping out after two years in 1975. In 1972, he accepted the position of youth director for the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. Between 1973 and 1980 Sharpton served as James Brown‘s tour manager.
Sharpton is an honorary member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.
Sharpton was licensed and ordained a Pentecostal minister by Bishop F. D. Washington at the age of nine or ten. After Bishop Washington’s death in the late 1980s, Sharpton became a Baptist. He was re-baptized as a member of the Bethany Baptist Church in 1994 by the Reverend William Augustus Jones and became a Baptist minister.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Has Halloween been celebrated in America since the first settlers arrived?
Not really. Not until large populations of Irish immigrants came to the United States in the mid-19th century did many of the well-known Halloween customs become popular here.
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
(Blank) ventured (Blank) gained. (What’s the saying? Fill in the blanks!)
1) Nothing. 2) Nothing.
Died
- St. Francis of Assisi (Catholic friar and mystic, founder of the Franciscan Order; died in Umbria, Italy) –
- Woody Guthrie (singer) –
- Roddy McDowall (actor) –
- William Steig (illustrator for The New Yorker, known as the King of Cartoons for his award-winning, best-selling children’s books including Shrek) –
- Janet Leigh (actress) –
Born
- John Ross (Cherokee Nation chief) –
- Leo McCarey (producer) –
- Gertrude Berg (actress) –
- Thomas Wolfe (author) –
- James Herriot (author) –
- Harvey Kurtzman (founding editor of Mad magazine) –
- Gore Vidal (author) –
- Eddie Cochran (singer) –
- Chubby Checker (singer) –
- Dave Winfield (baseball player) –
- Al Sharpton (minister & politician) –
- Gwen Stefani (singer) –
- Keiko Agena (actress) –
- Seann William Scott (actor) –
- Ashlee Simpson (singer) –
- Kaci (singer) –
- Noah Schnapp (actor) –
Events
- President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day –
- Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women first published –
- First Canadian troops left for Britain to fight in World War I –
- The Andy Griffith Show made its television debut –
- The Dick Van Dyke Show debuted on television –
- At midnight, East and West Germany were reunited as one nation, the Federal Republic of Germany –
- The comic strip Cathy came to an end after 34 years –
- Rare yellow male northern cardinal spotted in Port St. Lucie, Florida. –
- A meteorite crashed through a roof in Golden, B.C. The homeowner, Ruth Hamilton, heard an explosion and found bits of the meteorite near her bed pillow, mere inches from where her head had been. –
Weather
- October Gale hit southern New England –
- Start of a 767-day dry spell in Bagdad, California. –
- A tornado hit Windsor Locks, Connecticut –
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