| Summary: | Civil rights activist Reverend Alfred "Al" Sharpton was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954. He was licensed and ordained as a minister at the age of nine, and in 1971, he founded the National Youth Movement. For seventeen years, Sharpton led the organization, registering young people to vote and giving them job opportunities. In 1991, he formed the National Action Network to fight for progressive social change. He developed a reputation for organizing voter education and registration campaigns, economic support for small community businesses, and confronting corporate racism. In 1999, Sharpton, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree formed Second Chance, a program to serve nonviolent felony offenders after their release from prison. Sharpton orchestrated a massive protest when police shot unarmed Amadou Diallo 42 times in 1999. In 2001, Sharpton protested the U.S. Navy's bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
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