Al Sharpton Brown Quotations

James Brown became my father. He would talk to me the way a father talked to a son. He became the father I never had.

As I stood and gave the eulogy for young Michael Brown last week, I kept thinking about the fact that this child should have been in college instead of laying in a coffin.

If it weren't for the mentorship and guidance from people like my mother, James Brown and others, I wouldn't have been able to make something of my life.

In Ferguson, there are witnesses who say Brown had his hands up when he was shot. That should be enough probable cause to go to trial to then determine if Officer Wilson is guilty or not. It is at trial that he can then defend himself and his attorneys can present their own witnesses and their own defense.

Brown became like a father figure to me who insisted I live the life of a monk, let alone a minister. I had to stay in the hotel he stayed in, stay in my room, and he would almost select my girlfriends. He was very adamant that he had promised my mother that I would not go wayward on the road, and he enforced it. So even though I knew the entertainment world, I was not of the entertainment world -- and not by any choice of my own. He promised my mother that he'd make sure I was never on drugs, that I never lost my head, and that he'd take care of me himself. And he did.