‘Loudmouth’: 5 Lessons From Rev. Al Sharpton On How To Be An Effective Activist
Rev. Al Sharpton stepped onto the national stage as an activist in 1980s New York City, a time of heightened racial tension in the Big Apple, and has become a nationwide voice in the social justice movement.
In the documentary Loudmouth, which premieres on BET before the NAACP Image Awards on Feb. 25, Sharpton, a Brooklyn native, recalled the simmering racial environment in New York City and around the country at that time.
In one incident that ignited a racial firestorm, Bernhard H. Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante, who is white, opened fire on four Black teenage boys in 1984 on a Manhattan train, partially paralyzing one of them. Goetz claimed self-defense because he believed he was going to be mugged when they asked him for $5. Three years later, a jury acquitted him of attempted murder.
In another high-profile incident, a mob of white teens wielding baseball bats chased a 23-year-old Black man, Michael Griffith, to his death on Dec. 20, 1986 in Howard Beach, Queens. The thugs, angered by seeing a Black man in their neighborhood, yelled the N-word at Griffith, who was struck by a car fleeing the mob.
Amid the boiling racial tension, Sharpton recalled that New York Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat, used racist dog whistles, like the term Black “poverty pimps,” to appeal to some white voters.
Sharpton has given voice to our trauma and anger for decades – showing no signs of slowing down as a younger generation of activists continue the struggle for racial justice and equality.
Over the years, he’s mastered the tools of activism. Here are five lessons from his playbook revealed in the documentary.
1. Get loud to correct the narrative
Sharpton said in the story of the hunter and the lion, the hunter always wins. Why? That’s because the hunter writes the story. In the hunter’s narrative, the lion is always depicted as inferior and unworthy.
Translation: The system writes the story, which is always slanted. “Everytime we come into a case the first thing we have to do is fight the wrong narrative,” Sharpton says. “They try to criminalize and demonize the victim.”
2. It’s not enough to be a great orator
It’s one thing to orate about the evils of racism but another thing to shine a light on it, the preacher says. As a younger man, all the activists he studied emerged at a time when white people ignored complaints about injustice from Black leaders. “So you had to be loud because you were not invited to address the public,” he noted.
At the time of Griffith’s death, the media largely ignored the case. Sharpton said he could have stayed at home and delivered speeches, but he decided that it would be more effective to go to Howard Beach and have folks there make the speech for him.
Understanding the power of capturing hatred on video, Sharpton drew news cameras to Howard Beach by leading a huge youth rally in the neighborhood. At the peaceful demonstration, Reporters interviewed angry Howard Beach residents who unabashedly spewed the N-word and said Black people are not welcomed in their community.
3. Know the difference between winning a case and changing the system
A jury convicted three white teenagers of manslaughter for Griffith’s death after a tense three-months trial and 12 days of deliberations. The jury, which included just one Black person, also found them guilty of first-degree assault for beating another Black man, Cedric Sandiford, with a baseball bat that night.
It would have been easy to say mission accomplished, this victory changes everything, and go home.
But effective activists understand that there’s a difference between moments and movements. “You could have a good momentary victory without structural change in the criminal justice system,” Sharpton admonishes.
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4. Navigate two views that stifle movements
Activists must learn how to expand support for social justice by navigating two widely held views that could stifle the movement.
Sharpton said white people often demand to know why he makes everything about race. At the same time, many Black people have asked him why he’s leading marches because nothing is going to change, anyway.
“It’s somewhere between these two questions that I’ve had to do a lot of my work in activism,” the civil rights leader says.
5. Use the story to highlight the issues
Often, the public fixates on an individual incident and misses the underlying issue. Effective activism involves surfacing the systemic problem to bring about change.
Preachers learn to use biblical stories to highlight moral or ethical messages, Sharpton noted. He has applied that method to his social justice work. What happened to Griffith in Howard Beach is the story, but the issue is racial violence. Use the story to make the issue clear.
LOUDMOUTH premiers on Saturday, February 25 at 4:30 p.m on BET, BET Her, VH1 and will stream on BET+ following the "54th NAACP Image Awards". The film can also be seen on Showtime at a later date.
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