Al Sharpton Quotes

Trayvon Martin was 17, Mike Brown was young, Tamir Rice was 12. And so young people are affected by it, possibly the most affected, because they're seeing themselves.

I grew up in the neighborhood where Eric Garner died. No one knows that about me.

The cure for the Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner tragedies is not education or exposure. It's the gospel.

We have been shaken by the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice - shaken, but not sufficiently unsettled. We must contextualize those losses, force our neighbors to become so deeply disturbed by what has occurred that they, too, are inspired to act to change the system.

'Strong Island' is not your typical true-crime film. It's not actually about the uncovering of evidence or following leads that hadn't been seen before or any of that stuff.

While I understand the passions and the anger that arise over the death of Michael Brown, giving into that anger by looting or carrying guns, and even attacking the police, only serves to raise tensions and stir chaos.

On a personal level, I've seen a lot in my time as attorney general, but few things have affected me as greatly as my visit to Ferguson. I had the chance to meet with the family of Michael Brown. I spoke to them not just as attorney general but as a father of a teenage son myself.

I don't want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just don't know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.

Just to assassinate Michael Brown's character is wrong.

Following Michael Brown's death, I went to Ferguson and met with his parents. I stood with them as they tried to hold their heads high and deal with both their immense loss and the larger issues of police-community relations.

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy and consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

You see people being lynched in public, while others take pictures of the scene. Mind you, this is the 21st century—not the French Revolution.

Trayvon Martin did not need to die.

Michael Brown's death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America.

If you asked me why I went to jail, the easiest explanation would be to say, 'Because I'm black.'

At the time when I was in college, Oscar Grant had just lost his life in Oakland, Calif. He was an unarmed young black male who had a record. And at the time when his death was making headlines, more people were talking about what he had done in his past than the fact that he unjustly lost his life.

Michael Brown - when he lost his life, there was more focus on what he had done sometimes than what was done to him.

What fixes your spirit when Ferguson happens? When Trayvon Martin and those kind of things happen, they hurt your spirit; it hurts your heart and your soul. You need something to fix it.

The protests and pain over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown had me wondering if we can ever experience the world as others do. For no matter how disputed the circumstances of both cases, many people see what happened in black and white.

The thing that happened in Ferguson touched many of us in a specific way.

The whole reason behind my album 'Free TC' is seeing all that police brutality, injustice, mass incarceration.

The first thing I organized around was the Central Park Five case for the young men who were accused. We talked about the unfair misrepresentation of these young teenagers in the media. I've been fighting back against Donald Trump for a long time.

I mean we just simply can't stand for the systemic racism, social injustice and police brutality against the black community anymore. And it's really about standing up for what's right versus what's wrong.

Dan Donovan was the district attorney at one point who could not indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo, who choked Eric Garner on video, for the whole country to watch, for the whole world to watch. And he actually, immediately after that, won a seat in Congress. He beat a Democrat to get into Congress.

Trayvon exposed a lot of things. I think something positive will come out of it. It's a blessing in disguise. And he will never be forgotten.