Source: OWN
This Sunday, Oprah is sitting down with the renowned Al Sharpton to discuss how his work as a Civil Rights leader has changed over the years, why he made the decision to get healthy and his beginnings as a preacher. Stuff we probably already knew or wouldn’t be too surprised to learn about Al Sharpton. But in a surprising revelation, Sharpton talks about the moment that changed his life: his father leaving his family, taking Sharpton’s older, half sister with him and having a child with her. Yes, you read that correctly. And yes it was a complete a hot mess. Get the story from Sharpton himself in the transcript and video below.
On his father leaving his family
Sharpton: Well, I was already preaching in churches. We were living in Queens, Hollis, Queens, which was at that time like the suburbs.
Winfrey: Not just — not just preaching in churches but I love the story of you would — your mama made you a pulpit in the basement.
Sharpton: Yeah.
Winfrey: And you’d line up your sister’s dolls and preach to them.
Sharpton: I’d line the dolls up.
Winfrey: You were born to preach.
Sharpton: That was the best congregation I ever had. Not much of an offering but they never complained. So I had this idyllic suburban — I would have grown up to be the nice middle class black bourgeois league that I would attack later in life. That’s where I was.
Winfrey: That’s where you were headed.
Sharpton: That’s where I was headed.
Winfrey: Your father owned his own business.
Sharpton: Owned about 23 buildings in Brooklyn.
Winfrey: Wow.
Sharpton: I wake up one morning, he’s gone. And not only is he gone, my oldest sister from my mother’s first marriage.
Winfrey: How old was she?
Sharpton: She was around 18.
Winfrey: Yeah.
Sharpton: Left with him and they had a child. And then they came and took my sister to live with them.
Watch the video of the exchange below.
First Look: The Moment That Changed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s Life Forever
On the next page Al Sharpton explains the anger he felt for years because of the broken relationship with his father.
Winfrey: So were you, for a very long time, an angry black man?
Sharpton: Oh, I was very angry. And I was angry not only at society. I was angry at my father. I was angry at some of my mentors. I felt, you know, if I hadn’t lived a middle class life and then went to the ‘hood, I might not have been as angry. But I felt robbed.
Winfrey: Mm.
Sharpton: I felt if I had the right life and y’all took it from me for no reason.
Winfrey: Mm-hmm.
Sharpton: And then humiliated my mother. My mother went from having a new Cadillac every year to scrubbing floors so I’d have a suit to wear to church on Sunday. I was mad about that.
Winfrey: Mm-hmm.
Sharpton: I was mad about that.
Winfrey: And some of that anger is what we saw in your protests.
Sharpton: A lot of that anger was exercising protests.
Winfrey: Yeah.
Sharpton: And exercising a lot of things in life. Because I never stopped and really analyzed and admitted to myself where is all this anger? I mean, when you wake up mad
Winfrey: (Laughter.)
Sharpton: I mean, nothing’s even happened yet. You’re just mad when you wake up. You look at the pillow mad. I mean —
Winfrey: (Laughter.)
Sharpton: At some point you’ve got to stop and say, what am I so angry about?
Winfrey: Yeah.
Sharpton: Because you never really dealt with this pain inside.
Oprah to the Rev. Al Sharpton: “Were You for a Very Long Time an Angry Black Man?” – First Look
You can watch this interview on Sunday night at 9/8c on OWN.
