In an interview with NPR, Sharpton addressed several of the more enduring facts and fictions. And his fight against state voter-identification laws, which opponents feared would disenfranchise blacks and Latinos, helped mobilize minorities and lead to record black and Latino turnout in the 2012 presidential election.Īlong the way, his career has given rise to a host of rumors, falsehoods and truths both unexpected and unflattering to Sharpton. His protests of the police investigation of the fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin helped lead to a review of the state's 'Stand Your Ground' self-defense law.

He broke ranks with fellow black pastors to support gay marriage and denounce homophobia within black communities. He brought national attention to the 'driving while black' form of racial profiling, which led to police reforms in many cities. He's also respected for his commitment to nonviolence and asked a judge for leniency for the man who stabbed him. He was stabbed by a white man before leading a march. He was indicted for tax evasion and fraud, and then acquitted. His conversation with an undercover FBI agent posing as a drug dealer was taped as part of a 1983 sting operation - but no charges were filed. The 58-year-old Sharpton, whose role in the Tawana Brawley case first made him a national figure a quarter century ago, has been called a race-monger, anti-Semite, shameless self-promoter and a shakedown artist who has used the threat of protest to extract corporate donations for his civil rights organization, National Action Network. Al Sharpton has spent nearly all of his adulthood in the spotlight, earning both praise and condemnation. Click on the slideshow above to see a day in the life of Sharpton and hear more about how he juggles it all while running a civil rights organization with 40 chapters across the nation, hosting his own radio show, and appearing on PoliticsNation - all on the same day. Al Sharpton about the unusual arc of his checkered career, from pugnacious street fighter for racial justice to savvy insider with ties to CEOs, a successful television show and the the ear of a soon-to-be second-term president. Editor's note: NPR's Corey Dade recently traveled to New York to interview the Rev.

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